need advise for my phal
 

Hi! I got this phalaenopsis on Mother's day this year. It had lost 2 bottom leaves since May. It's already August and I haven't seen any improvement. No new leaf nor new roots. There is like a new leaf peeking when I got it but it didn't grow out. It's potted in sphagnum moss, I think. I am carefully holding on watering it. I'm watering every 2 weeks sometimes even a month of no watering. I'm using skewers to check if it's still moist in the middle.

Any advise why my phal went stagnant? Thank you in advance

Maybe the spagh moss is smothering the roots. You might try re-potting in chunky bark.

Kindly pardon my ignorance, but, didn't the phal grew in that original pot and the sphag? If it grew in that pot then it must be happy? So why should I change it?

I've always read to repot orchids as soon as it has stopped blooming but why fix when it's not broken?

Sorry for my ignorance... thank you for your reply, wintergirl.

If the moss were too tight, there might be rot present. Take it out and repot into some airy mix.

You can grow them in moss, but it will asphyxiate the roots if you aren't careful. IIt's easier and safer to grow it in bark chunks so the roots can breathe.

We don't know if the orchid was grown in that moss, it could have been placed in moss for shipping and sale. I doubt your plant is happy if you are loosing leaves and you are asking for help. You can repot a phal anytime, but especially you should repot or at least look at your roots if you are loosing leaves.

Here is a thread you might find helpful : http://www.orchidboard.com/community...hal-abuse.html

Phals, and many commonly grown orchids are not terrestrial plants, and need air at their roots. Most commonly used potting mixes are organic materials, and break down with time (which leads to root problems in time). The dried sphagnum moss breaks down faster than other organic potting media (and beomes acidic) and it's recommended that it be replaced annually.
Many people tend to over-water when using sphag moss (it is very effective for water retention, and store bought orchids are usually are potted with a lot of it really packed in the pot, which also leads to root problems.

the Phal abuse thread (read the first few, to several pages) may be helpful, as well as the sticky thread about using skewers to help determine when to water.

If your conditions and practices matches that of the mass grow nursery, you can leave it in sphag. The nursery sells their stock before the media degrades, they leave that for you to do. If you can adapt care relative to the moss degrading, you can leave it longer.

Most people change media to suit their conditions and practices. How many of us can afford an automated misting system for each grow zone (temp/RH/watering)?

What seems to hapen in a lot of sellers is that the orchids (and other plants too) are potted in substrate that will last until they are sold to the garde centres. I always repot all plants I buy, and almost all are root bound some nearly terminallly.
I have a misting system, but the phals aren't in it. They are outside and get a wash down, the crowns filled wiith water (to prove a point) and a water every day in the hot season.

I really don''t like moss and won't use it ESPECIALLY for phals. If you keep phals in moss, you tread a very fine line between root rot and adequate watering. You simply can't overwater in bark chunks, unless you never change the bark, and lave it sitting in water.

Thank you for your replies and advises. I will try to do wood mounting on my phal as I'm so fond of misting and checking on my orchids every morning. I'm still drying the wood that it'll be mounted on.

look what I discovered! huhu I'm a bad mama.

Pic 1 the one always facing me

Pic 2 when I turned it around to remove the old sphag

Pic 3 the roots before I remove to repot

right now, I soaked my phal's roots in hormex solution. I will try to repot it in a while. I'm still drying up the mount. I forgot to take a pic of the roots after removing it from the pot.

what's pic 2? is it a crown rot? what should I do?

which is nicer to mount it to?

if you dont have a greenhouse, misting wont keep up a mounted phal in the house. you wont like the results.

Nothing wrong with sphag for phals. Its people that kill them not the sphagnum moss.

can you be more specific? I thought mounting phals are highly recommended. I wanted to mount it since the roots are already yellowish, which means I tend to overwater. :scratchhead::scratchhead:

Phalaenopsis can certainly be grown mounted. However, plants grown on mounts typically require daily spraying to avoid dehydration (assuming you are growing in a temperate climate, at least part-time indoors, and not growing outdoors in a high rainfall environment).

If you sometimes take vacations away from your plants, pot your Phal in bark. This is the easiest care option. Water once or twice a week, at the sink, water flowing through the pot. Let the bark dry most of the way between watering, don't mist the leaves or let water stand on the leaves (promotes rot).

Decent sized bark chunks are far and away the best medium. They are open enough to allow the roots to breathe.

I wouldn't take the comments about wet leaves and rot seriously. As yet no one has given me a single good explanation as to how wetting the leaves causes rot.. For the last year, I have gone out of my way to wash the leaves down and FILL the crown wth water every time I water.

In the wild, the crown and leaves get wetted regularly. To me it makes no sense to say that wetting leaves or crown will cause a problem.

Let me put it like this. Epihytic orchids, have to be tough. Theirs is a somewhat harsh environment. If your oorchids are so close to the edge tthat a wetting will kkill them, then I would venture to suggest that there are other problems that should be urgently addressed.

ie, if your orchid is way too cold, and you water it last thing at night, that might kill it. However, it would be the cold, and not the water that would be to blame.

Do please somebodt post if you can show me where I am wrong in this. If I am wrong I would love to be corrected, - if I am right, we can stop worrying about a misconceived threat.

Phals tend to hang upside down in nature so the water won't sit in the crown.
But I agree with the cold!
If it's warm and there is enough air movement, the water in the crown will evaporate faster and rotting problems are unlikely...

Thank you so much for your replies, sirs and m'ams. I guess my location is not stated on my info. I am from the tropical country, Philippines.
No problem about watering coz I really like observing and watering my orchids every morning. And when I'm away, there are still people staying in the house.
We don't have cold climate here. The coldest we get is 24C at night from Dec-Feb. I grow the phal indoor.

Yep, been told this one already. Still not had an answer to my follow up question.

In the morning, when it's cold, the mist will condense on the orchid, on ALL surfaces, and capillary action will pull it into all the narrow gaps between crown and leaf, so they are just as wet as if it were vertical, and you filled the crown so that the water then drains thru those gaps.

So, what's the difference? Like I say, if someone can tell me, I would be delighted to be corrected, but if no one can, then everyone is worrying over nothing.

I believed it when I was told, and then one day I got some water in the crown of onne, and whenn I went back to dry it, all the water was gone. So I filled it, and watched the water drain away.

So, for the last year I have quite deliberately filled the crowns of my phals, whether vertical or at an angle. Still no crown rot!

Bil I know this works for you but I sure am not going to try it. I have rotted a couple of them and one I'm getting back on track after having it in the media to deep and having to start the keiki all over again. I do think it is both as Tschimm say's. Water plus cold and perhaps not enough air movement. I had 63 F yesterday in my house as it was 41F outside. So some of us had better not try and see if we can rot one unless we are willing to lose it.

Bil, where are you located? It would be interesting to compare regions of the country, maybe what works in one area might not in another ?? All your advice and tips are very helpful!

Right. I'm not going to try it. I know it works for him but I'm not thinking it would work for me. I didn't mean that to sound bad, I hope it was not taken that way. I was giving my :twocents:

Hey, Shannon, that's why we are all here I guess, to share ideas and get tips and suggestions from others on what has worked well for them. Your post did not sound bad to me at all. Thanks for all your tips and suggestions; they are very helpful to me and I'm sure others as well!

Thanks for the kind words. I'm in the deep south of Spain, hot and dry, until it gets a bit cold in the winter.

---------- Post added at 05:30 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:20 PM ----------

Hey, please, I didn't take offence. I don't ever take offence when someone differs in opinion.
I put my ideas forward to see if other people can correct them or improve them.

There are a lot of people who say "Don't wet the crown!"

I ask, "Why not?" because it doesn't make sense to me. That in itself doesn't make me correct, but in order to accept that I am wrong, I need someone to explain why you mustn't wet the crown.

Is that so wrong?

There is nothing to stop you or anyone else buying a cheap NOID phal and testing my idea. Why not? It is unhelpful to tell newbies who are panicking over a dying orchid that wetting the crown was what did it when they should be focussing on something more important.

Last winter I lost one phal from crown rot, and it was one in a group of three in the garage that got a bit colder than did the ones in the garage. The ones in the garage were watered very carefully, BECAUSE it was so cold there, and even tho the crown was dry and I never wetted it, it died from crown rot. All the others in the house got their crowns wetted, and I have been doing it for a year now. Every watering, I wash the leaves and fill the crown. 5 minutes after watering they are empty and the crown is no wetter than it would be in the wild on a cool misty morning, no matter what angle it grew at.

I should try it but I am a scared little mouse :rofl: and here's another bad thing about me...ok I'm just going to say it......I water mostly in late afternoon :blushing: I know I'm not suppose to. In Oct. I will be doing it in the morning again.

What medium do you use?

Get a dirt cheap NOID phal, pot it in chunky bark only, so you can't overwater it, and try what I say.

Cold will kill your phals long before a bit of water. At low temps, I would be careful to water early.

17C in the day? where are you?

I live in Wyoming close to the Mountains. Our house does get cold in the winter and also when we get a cold front like we have been getting lately. Yesterday morning we had one come in and when I got up it was 58 F in the house. Because the wind was blowing through the swamp cooler. Frost on the pumpkin so to speak.

I'm sure part of my problem is that it can and does sometimes get cold in my house but if the sun is shinning then it will warm up in the afternoon.

When I potted up my larger phals I used coconut hulls but I have been using a seedling mix on my mini's which I have started putting more spagh in because they were drying out to fast. I also have very low humidity here. I have a few I need to re-pot and I'm not for sure what I am going to use. I would like for them to last 4 or 5 days before I have to water again as I am getting tired of have to water so many every other day.

Reason behind the "no water in crown" recommendation
 

For what it is worth, here is the reason for the "don't water the crown" recommendation. In a minute I will also give reasons why some people can safely ignore this warning.

Google "wild Phalaenopsis" images and you will see that nearly all wild Phals grow sideways from their locations on trees, roots extending up and down the trunk. In this position, water drips off of the leaves and does not accumulate in the crown. There are exceptions, such as plants formerly called Doritis, now included in Phalaenopsis; these grow vertically, often on rock.

Over many years of growing and also a few years on Orchid board and other forums, most Phal problems seem to be related to rotten roots (packed tight in wet moss) or crown rot. Often the crown rot seems to coincide with the habit lf watering overhead or mist ing, especially late in the day. Many Phals bought at the grocery end up in homes or offices that don't have good air circulation, which allows accumulated water to stay in the crown longer. So, avoiding water in the crown is a good precaution to avoid crown rot.

Is it a "rule" that must be followed? No. If you live in a semi-arid temperate, low humidity climate (Wyoming) or a Mediterranean climate (warm or hot dry summer, cool wet winter, including much of Spain and California), water in the crown is likely to evaporate quickly. You can probably ignore this precaution.

Here in north Georgia (USA) we have high humidity year round. Temperatures are cool to cold in winter to hot in summer. In winter I don't dare water the crowns. I can get away with overhead watering in summer because the plants are outdoors and always have excellent air flow.

So, the recommendation to not water the crown is a general precaution that makes sense where detailed growing conditions are not known. It can be ignored on a case-by-case basis, according to personal choice.

Hi! Thank you for all the discussions that went through this thread. It is very educational.

I want to show you that I have finally mounted my phal. I tried mounting with this one as I have yet another one lined up to be repotted.

So what should I do after I repot it? Should I water everyday or every other day?

Btw, it's rainy season in our country so humidity is between 60-80. average 70

Nice post, thanks for taking the time. A couple of questions please.

"In winter I don't dare water the crowns." What temp do your orchids go down to??

"water in the crown is likely to evaporate quickly. "
That isn't my query so much. The crowns empty so fast that if you fill the upright ones, and go and gget a paper towel, they are empty.
Where the leaves join the crown, that gap will hold water, no matter how it gets there. So in the wild, cold misty days will wett that junction and trap water there. So why isn't that a problem in the wild?

" most Phal problems seem to be related to rotten roots (packed tight in wet moss) or crown rot. "
See! This is the curse the vile Mossites have to endure for abandoning the true road of the Barkistas!
What I would LOVE is your honest assessment (if you can) of percentage of crown rot cases were potted in moss, or open bark.

"Often the crown rot seems to coincide with the habit lf watering overhead or mist ing, especially late in the day."
Here, I must admit, I am pathological about only watering in the morning.

Like I say, I would love to know what % of crown rot cases would be eliminated if all phals were potted in open bark.

honestly your phal looks fine.
I've read throught the responses and have to put my 2c in. This is a great board but there are some real blowhards giving questionable advice. Sad but true.
My 2c :
- your phal looks fine. leaves will yellow & die from the bottom up, its normal. If its happening slowly, its probably fine. Your roots look fine in your later pics.
- Sphagnum moss is great medium for phals. Eventually though, Root growth will compact the medium such that the roots can't get air. What to do? Pick all that sphag out of the root ball, wash the sphag, add some perlite and repot.
- Generally not a good idea to leave water in the crown on purpose. You want the surface areas to dry off after watering. Are we actually arguing this?

Well, unless you can explain how wetting the crown holds water in there any more than mist on a cool morning in the wild wets it.

Me, I try to leave water in the crown, but I just can't do it, because the way the leaves emerge from the crown means the water will drain out pdq.

I'd be obliged if you could tell me how wetting it will induce crown rot. I can see that a sick phal with suffocating roots that has been over exposed to cold might just cross the line with an additional spray of cold water late one evening , but in that case, surely saying don't wet the crown is like rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic.

To my amusement, the one phal I lost to crown rot was one of those that had to overwinter in the garage, the coldest place as there wasn't enough space in the house, and the greenhouse wasn't finished.

BECAUSE it was so cold, they were watered very carefully, and the cowns weren't wetted. Maybe had I wetted the crown, it might have died a week earlier. Who knows?

"Blowhard" Isn't that defined as 'Someone who won't agree with me' ?? :rofl:

I like to joke about the Barkistas vs the Mossites, but I don't do it in a nasty way.

Tell me, since when is calling people Blowhards in the spirit of this board?

It is not so much the temperature, but the lack of air movement where my orchids grow over the winter. To answer your question, temperature is in the mid to upper 60s F.


IMO, not a problem in the wild because (a) the wild plants mostly have the crown pointing semi-horizontally, rather than vertically, (b) better air flow outdoors.

I wish I could answer, but to be honest, I'm really not sure. I view the problems as somewhat independent (but I imagine if you did a post mortem on many phals with crown rot, many would also have roots that are in trouble). I have seen Phals with dead crowns but great looking roots, so the don't always coincide.


Indoors, or when cold outdoors, I am too. Less so when my plants are growing outdoors when its warm.

If you decide to keep a count based on posts in the forum, I would be interested to see what you find out.

1,, 60F is crudely 15C, Not too cold, I was wetting the crowns at that temp last winter.

2. The semi horizontal thing is irrelevant, as I say, the vertical phals don't hold water, where it holds if at all is in the gaps between where the leaf emerges, and what small amounts hold there would be no different from moisture pullled in by capillary action on a cold misty morning. I lost two min max battery powered thermometers before I learnt how far mist and condensation penetrates.

3. Root rot .. would you think that root rot regularly leads to crown rot? I would suspect not as there are lots more phals without roots, than cases of root rot, going by what I see on here..

I suspect, tho like you I have no proof, that cold - or even too much heat would be a real prime cause for the crown dying and rotting.

It would be very interesting if people who did suffer from crown rot could tell us the medium, ie bark or moss, or whatever, but the huge problem is that betwen the types of medium, the frequency of watering, the temperatures, the style of watering and so on, that it would be next to impossible to produce a reliable correllation.

I think we can agree that the closer we are to keeping them in their natural state, the less likely we are to see crown rot. ie an open medium, good ventilation, reliable watering and fertiliser at low levels.

You know, thinking about it, I'm not sure whether or not you can actually leave the leaves wet. Tomorrow, I will pay more attention, but thinking about it, the leaves are pretty waxy, and don't themselves hold water.

Have a look at yours and see what you think please.