please help me not kill this phal
 

hello,

i’ll try to keep it short, can someone please tell me what is happening with my orchid and what i should do?

background - i bought this at the end of february and repotted it. it has been doing okay until the last two weeks, i noticed the underside of one of the leaves going splotchy. i have been extra careful to try not to get the stem wet and letting it dry between waterings, and leave a window open all day to let air flow thru.

at first i thought maybe it was because of mold, because i noticed a little bit of white fuzzy mold on one of the aerial roots. i poured diluted physan/water mix over it last week and the mold looks gone, but the leaf is getting more splotchy.

the bottom-most leaf turned yellow and came off. however the next bottom leaf is the one going splotchy, and i noticed some sap(?) on the edge underside of the leaf too. its also appearing on another one of the leaves.

i’m afraid to water it now but am not sure what is going on. also the aerial roots look shriveled up (they already looked that way when i bought it, but now they look even worse). the ones inside the pot seem okay but i’m not sure if it’s my imagination that they’re getting shrively too?

i tried to take some photos - uploaded to google drive here:
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thank you in advance!! i don’t want to kill this orchid but have no idea what i am doing wrong.. :(

Did it look anything like this?

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Any chance they were regular root hairs (which happen to be important parts of orchid roots).

Also consider the flower used chemical elements for developing those many flowers ----- so consider possibility of nutrient deficiency or element deficiency. So weak fertiliser application and weak cal-mag application could be considered ----- that's assuming the orchid isn't getting attacked by pathogens.

Orchids can sometimes exude some sap. Could just use a clean wet cloth to wipe it off if you want to.

The sap I see in one of the photos is perfectly normal.
But it seems that you are not watering it enough as the medium looks dry.

southpark - no, i’m pretty sure it was mold.. i uploaded a photo i took (before i physan’d it). photo is here: IMG_1969.JPG - Google Drive

i have been watering it about once a week / when the moss on top starts feeling crunchy. but the week before the mold appeared, temps in the area dropped to 40F outside (i have no heat, so low 50s indoors).

my friend gave me fertilizer pellets (nutricote 13-13-13) to put on top of the moss, so that is what i have on it. could the splotchyness because of under fertilizing?

Low 50's is a too low temp. The plant will decay (started already) untill it die. Phalaenopsis are temperate warm growing plants and the lowest min temp (optimal) is around 60 F at night.

Some Phalaenopsis can take occasional dips into the 50s if acclimated, but sustained low temperatures usually lead to death. If you want to save it, you’ll need to invest in something like a seedling heat mat to get the temperatures up. I’d also close the window: warmth beats extra air circulation. At a minimum to facilitate recovery, you want to shoot for daytime temperatures at least into the 70s.

I’ve pushed the limits on what a lot of my Phalaenopsis can tolerate in terms of cold. What you’re describing mirrors what I’ve seen when a plant is pushed beyond what it can take. The only way to save these plants is to warm them up.

Thanks for explaining VV.

Yes, definitely ------ the usual assumption is that orchid growers must provide orchids with at least the recommended growing temperature range and recommended lighting levels, and maybe recommended humidity range too, and also providing appropriate amount of water to the media and roots (without allowing roots to run low on oxygen).

Just make sure to keep quantities like temperature range within the recommended limits, and everything should pan out nicely. Also take into consideration appropriate fertiliser and/or cal-mag supplements ------ and to never over-do those supplements.

I would not worry about the leaves, they look fine to me, and loosing old leaves is a natural process.

As rbarata noted, the roots I can see on top are very dried out (they won't plump back up). But it looks like there may still be viable roots below. I would suggest watering more frequently. Orchids are used to growing in very humid environments so you really do not need to be too careful about letting the media dry out.

My recommendations: Close the window! If you don't have the heat on, your orchid will prefer having the window closed. When watering, water thoroughly until the roots in the lower part of the pot look green, letting water drain through. Then water again when the roots look whitish again, but do not wait until the media is 100% dry. Usually orchid growers water when media is "nearly" or "just" dry, i.e. when it is still slightly damp in places but not waterlogged anywhere. With your media, I imagine this should mean watering at least once a week, possibly every 5 days or so. I think that with more frequent watering your orchid should be fine. The leaves are healthy, and it will eventually put out new roots!

thank you everyone for all the advice! i went ahead and watered the orchid, this time with msu fertilizer. i’ve also started closing the windows at night when it gets cold. the forecast for this week is going to hit 80s during the day so hopefully the warmer weather will help.

i was sooo afraid to overwater because i was gifted a mini orchid last year for my birthday, and it looked beautiful until a couple weeks in winter when the temperatures dropped to 30 degrees.. after that, it lost all of its leaves within a month and shriveled up and died. :( the moss also had some mold on it and the stem turned black so i thought it was probably from sitting in water for too long (it was taking 2-3 weeks at least for the medium to get dry).

wish me luck.. i’ll keep monitoring and post an update (hopefully a happy one!) soon. thank you again! :bowing

Sorry to hear this. The death of your orchid was much more likely from the temperature drop than from overwatering though. But it is especially important not to let them get too cold when the medium is wet.