Help needed on reviving my dendrobium!
 

Hi, all the orchid lovers out there!

I got this NOID plant in bloom back in August. The bark it was planted in looked too old and mushy to me, which retains too much water. So I checked the root, and wow~ all the bark was wet and mushy, and the roots were mushy as well. I dumped everything right away, trimmed the dead roots, which was pretty much all of it. I wondered how it was able to look so healthy and even in bloom when the roots were bad.

I wasn't sure what to do, and didn't have any good potting medium for dendrobium at the time, so I just hung it on my window blind as in the picture.
I misted a few times everyday to keep it alive.

It managed to stay in bloom in the past three months in this condition. I'm surprised by how tough this plant is!

As of yesterday, it dropped all the flowers (25 of them) and all the leaves turned yellow and dropped. I guess it dried out over time because it had basically no living roots. The dormant eyes toward the bottom of the canes are all black and gone (this was the case back in August) I think it was kept too wet in the farm.

I want to try and revive the plant, but never done this before. I've read somewhere that you can lay the canes on moist sphagnum moss and little plantlet might grow from each node on the old cane.
If anyone has successful experience doing this, please share with me some tips.
I love the flowers on this den and it smells so nice too!
By the way, some of the cane had two keikis on them and I cut them and potted them up. They are still green but not showing any signs of growth yet.

Thank you for reading.

Cut that flower spike IMMEDIATELY. Its sucking all of the plant's nutrients, Post pictures of your keikis and what you need to do is wash the root mass in a weak fungicide solution like physan 20 then pot it up in the smallest (don't worry if its too small for the plant) pot that you can find with loosely packed moss soaked in rooting hormone like kln then just hope that it produces good viable roots. If/when that happens, pot it up in bark mix (not moss. the moss was just for initial root growth) and don't overwater. only water when the potting medium if fully dry and the roots are silvery and not green.
More pictures (close ups) of the roots and keikis please.
Hope that helps!!!
And btw to secure the plant into the pot, use a rhizome clip. they're very inexpensive. you can find em wherever you get orchid supplies.
GOOD LUCK

and by the way, it was able to sustain itself and the flowers because of the stored food and water in the pseudobulbs.

I agree with comment obove, but instead of the pot us a large ziploc bag. Use a rubber band to hold the
bag and canes together. I used a pot before, but it was annoying when the plant constantly fell out of the pot due to it being unbalanced.

NONONONONO.Ziplock ???????
Cut the spike and get a clay pot, some carbon(real charcoal) and or red lava rock and mount it so it doesn't move a lick.
Here's what the setup looks like. Forget the plastic nonsense. That's for profiteers and cheaper shipping weights.
Orchid Clips, Orchid Plant Stakes, Hooks, Pot Hangers, Wires.
I never bought from these guys but the design of the pot and clip is correct. I usually make the slots larger with a pair of needle nosed pliers.
Keep the clay pot and media damp and let the roots choose their own directions and preferences.
Dens are TOUGH. You'll be fine.

I'm sorry, but putting an orchid in a plastic bag does work, or at least help in many cases providing that it's down correctly. You may have a different opinion, but there's no need to be so harsh. It may not work for you, but it has certainly worked for others in the past.

As NYCorchidman wrote, laying the bare canes on a bed of damp sphag (and in a plastic bag to maintain humidity) does encourage growth to sprout from the nodes, and even new growth from the base.

You are absolutely right on this, Camille. I have saved many a rescue plant from many genera using a damp mix of choice in a sealed heavy duty Zip Lok bag kept in a warm, well lit place. It acts as a mini greenhouse. :biggrin:

Cym Ladye

I'm afraid, at this point of destruction (I am still wondering if nobody saw shriveled canes before all the leaves were gone?), laying the canes in some sort of medium is your only hope. Some people say wet sand is a good option, to get eyes to sprout new canes but canes look pretty damaged and chance is very slim that it will happen.

And I usually save dends just by waiting for a new growth from the bottom, but you say yours are all black and dead.

As for keikis, I have 3 of them I got from a friend and I would advise you to also bag them to develop strong root system. I don't use bags but I keep them on small aquarium pebbles and mist them daily and they are giving me huge amount of roots. When I had them in medium, they did nothing, and even shown signs of dehydration.

No, the posted picture here is from last month. Now all the flowers are gone and nothing to suck anything out of it. I will cut the spike to make handling it easier, though.

Thank you, everyone!
 

The cane is shrievled badly since it has no living roots although I have been misting everyday. The dormant eyes at the bottom of the canes are all black and dead. I think the original grower had it planted too deep into the medium and too wet. I have one other den that has the same issue but at least that one is healthy otherwise and I see dorman eyes further up the canes swelling up. Yay!!! :)

Back to the point, I think my last chance is to lay it on wet sand or sphagnum moss and see if anything grows from the nodes. I wonder if I should really bag the whole thing to maintain high humidity or laying it on moist medium would be sufficient.

I did contact one dendrobium grow from Singapor and he said if the cane is deccicated too badly, then there is little hope.

I have no sphag at the moment, so I'm not sure if I want to order some just to try this seemingly doomed plant. Maybe I should just focus on the two little keikis and hope for the best instead?

So the first two pictures are of the same keiki. It still has all the green leaves. It was growing a flower spike when it was attached to the mother cane, but it got aborted after I cut it off the cane. It had quite a bit of roots on it already. No signs of activity in the past one month or so.

The second keiki is a little smaller and has no leaves. It does have lots of roots. It did have one small leaf in the beginning, but it yellowed and dropped shortly after I severed it from the cane. The top portion of this keiki was accidently cut off. Also, no activity going on on this little guy.

Both are potted in a mixture of bark chips, hydroton, rice hulls, charcoal chips, and coconut husk chips. I mist it every morning and evening to keep it from drying out.
Should I bag the whole plant? Anyone had any success doing this? Please let me know.