Phal plantation yellow bells
 

:waving everyone,

I bought this orchid in the spring; it was shipped bareroot. I have it in a 4" pot in seedling bark. I water every 3 or 4 days; it gets good eastern exposure part of the day. It hasn't gotten any new growths or a spike, what is up with it???? Thanks for any help. ;) I have included several pics of it; the last pic is where I have it located; as you can see it gets a fair amount of bright light. Also the lower leaf on the right is fading out; I don't know if this is natural due to it being older or what, but the other leaf on the left did this as well so after it turned yellow I removed it. It just seems to be stuck in limbo, I don't know what's up with this thing, maybe if I stick it next to the garbage can it will get the hint:evil: bahahahahahaha

Eddie

Hi Eddie,

It looks a little too light for me...maybe it's getting too much exposure. The bark mix also looks very dry, I'd increase the water just a bit.

Hoping somebody else chimes in with more advice... :goodluck:

Just my :twocents:, I agree with Sue that the color looks a bit too light and the media a bit dry. I also think the pot is a bit large for the size of plant, I use the smallest pot the roots will fit into. Are you using any fertilizer?
Joann

Thanks guys, I have moved it to a shadier area and will increase the watering. I haven't used much feritlizer with it, but will start doing so. As for the pot size, I have a phal sogo grape about the same size as this in a pot that looks to be about 1/2" smaller that is blooming and developing more buds, I noticed when I moved it that it is getting greener (was kinda pale green before). Thanks for your help, I will make the appropriate changes and see what happens.

Eddie

the pot size should be dictated by the root-mass and not the plant size.

I agree with comments above that the pot looks too big.

Problem is with a big pot, the top will dry but it will still be soggy inside. Upping the watering will then cause it to rot (if it hasn't already).

I think it would be better to get it in as small a pot as possible to fit the roots in, then it should dry more evenly and you won't end up overwating the bottom in an attempt to keep the top moist enough.

I also agree with comments about it looking quite light, although there are certain Phal species which are meant to be much paler, with most hybrids I would expect the leaves to be darker.

Thanks for your input everyone; I have repotted in sphag in a smaller pot. Upon removing this phal from the old pot, the root mass did seem to be quite small for the pot.

I had a similar situation with a phal that I had bought in May of this past year. It was in bark and simply did not grow. About a month ago, I repotted it in sphagnum moss and viola, it woke up from its slumber. Roots started elogating and it put out a new leaf. So, too dry will definitely slow or even stunt growth.

Good luck and let us know how it turns out.