Nelly in a bad way
 

I got a burr. nelly isler a few weeks ago and posted on the board my concerns about wrinkly PBs a couple of weeks ago. The conclusion was that there might be a moss ball in the middle and I should repot. Not having the right medium for repotting I ordered it (and a few more orchids ;) ). It took a few days to arrive and in that time I was so scared I was killing her with over watering I stopped watering....

I had checked on her roots before I ordered the bark and they were good and healthy and strong (the ones I could see). When I repotted her I did find a moss ball, but as I had let her dry out the roots were white and not the healthy green any more.

Since then her PBs have got more wrinkly, and I have read up about it, and I shouldn't have let her get dry :( So today I took her out her pot again and looked at her roots. They are almost all dead, I think I saw 2 with green in them, and they were short ones. I cut off the dead ones and put her in a pot which is half filled with polystyrene and half potting medium (poly at the bottom), and watered her. Now I can make sure she doesn't dry out as before, but she has almost no roots! Help!

She looks ok in herself, except for the wrinkly PBs, a tiny bit of browning on a couple of leaves is all, and she got that while she still had roots.

What should I do? I will try to get some KLN at the weekend (there is an orchid show I was planning to go to anyway).

The hardest thing to do is forthcoming...and that is to leave it alone and wait.

I would not pull the plant up anymore and just leave it in the media so roots will form properly.

KLN is a good idea as well.

Read up on the culture requirements and do your best. I got a Nelly recently after reading all the hub-bub here from a few posts. My research indicates they need a good bit of humidity. More in the 60% or higher range to do well.

Good luck :)

To me it sounds like you did the right things. Is there any new growth? New growth usually has new root growth accompanying it at some point and that makes it much easier to save.

I can't really suggest anything other than what you have done. Maybe others will be able to.

Sorry to have taken a while to get back to this, thanks for the replies :)

I will try to leave her be. She has 2 flower spikes should I remove them? (forgot to ask this originally), she had 3 but I noticed 1 had most of the flowers starting to wilt so I cut it off earlier.

There was no new growth that I saw :( I got KLN at the weekend and have started to use it, I think I am using it at the lowest dose, there didn't seem to be a description which really matched the problem :s

Skirril - If your plant has very little root mass and wrinkled bulbs, I would definately cut off the spikes and allow the plant put all of it's energy towards pushing out new growth and roots.

I wish you good luck with it, I have yet to keep one of those sphag ball orchids alive. Even when I repot as soon s it gets home it's too late, the damage was done at the store. I find it utterly disgusting the way commerical growers in Europe pot up their Onc alliance plants. Death is nearly inevitable....

Camille - unfortunately it's not only the growers in Europe that do that.

I agree with this. I'm just wondering why my nelly continues to send up spikes?!?! maybe I should cut them.

Skirril, I too have a nelly isler with no roots. I've left her alone in a pot with some coco and moss, staked the plant and covered all of it with a plastic bag. It's still in a bright east room but away from the window. I hope yours does well.

I found that mine loved to be outside in a hanging basket hanging from a tree branch! It must be the humidity and breezes as the pseudobulbs plumped up so quickly and beautifully. It was in spike and eventually some boring beetle started ruining the buds so I had to bring it into the greenhouse and now I am still enjoying its blooms. Maybe with so few roots, it won't be the same, but I would put it in a nice humid place or mist it regularly as the change in my wrinkled pseudobulbs were hard to believe.