Phalaenopsis afflicted with yellowing leaves
 

Hi everyone,

I'm a beginner orchid grower (on my first plant!) which is a Phalaenopsis hybrid. I received it as a gift about 1.5 months ago and it was doing quite well for awhile. It had two stems but one dried up which was mildly alarming, but I didn't know what to do about it. I thought perhaps it might be normal as the other stem was still very green. The plant has also had two of its bottom leaves yellow and fall off, which I read are normal for bottom leaves, but now one of the top leaves is a bit wrinkly and appearing to yellow (in spots!) but the other top leaf is very green and looks healthy. It's in a pot with bark at the bottom and moss at the top. I put in on my dining room table which gets sunlight from a West window that is mildly filtered, and I water the plant every 10 days or so by filling the pot with water, letting it stand for 10 minutes, and then draining the water.

With that background info, I have a few questions:
1. Was that normal for the other stem to dry up like that? You can see it in one of the attached pictures. Now that it's dried up, should I cut it off?
2. Should I be alarmed that one of the top leaves is wrinkly and getting a yellow spot? What might be the cause? I've done some reading and it may be a symptom of rotten roots? What is the best way for me to examine the roots without damaging the plant?

I apologize to avid orchid growers who might think that I've done a disservice to this orchid! Admittedly, I don't have a very green thumb, but this orchid was beautiful and I would really like to learn more about growing them. But now I think my orchid is in trouble and need help! Thanks for any advice you can give :D

There are some myths about Phalaenopsis you need to dispel if you've heard of some of them already...

Please read "The Phal abuse ends here." from the very beginning.

One of the biggest orchid myths out there is, (and I know you were thinking this in one way or another - most newbies do, that included me at one point in time), that a blooming orchid is a healthy orchid. I repeat, this is a myth and a fallacy.

The truth is - a blooming orchid just means it had enough energy to reproduce by making flowers. A plant's flowers are really their reproductive organs, (aka plant genitalia).

I wanted to give you an idea of what you're dealing with when you're attempting to grow a Phalaenopsis, by showing you video clips of where Phalaenopsis originally come from and how they grow in the wild instead of typing it out.

So, here are videos of Phalaenopsis in the wild:

Visiting Phalaenopsis cornucervi (orchid) habitat in the swamp of Borneo-part 1 - YouTube

Visiting Phalaenopsis cornucervi (orchid) habitat in the swamp of Borneo-part 2 - YouTube

Visiting Phalaenopsis cornucervi (orchid) habitat in the swamp of Borneo-part 3 - YouTube

Visiting Phalaenopsis cornucervi (orchid) habitat in the swamp of Borneo-part 4 - YouTube

Visiting Phalaenopsis cornucervi (orchid) habitat in the swamp of Borneo-part 5 - YouTube

Phalaenopsis in natural habitat ( in situ) - YouTube

Here's a link to a blogger blogging about Phals:

Sarawak Lens: Phalaenopsis Habitat

Roots on top are all really dead looking. If you water them and they don't turn green, they're dead.

Phalaenopsis, for the most part, grow on trees as evidenced from the videos I sent you links to. The roots are exposed to the air, as you can also see from the videos and photos in the links. Enough air reaching the roots is vital when it comes to growing an epiphytical orchid (the word epiphyte means a living organism that grows on the surface of another object - in the case of most Phals, those objects are trees).

Pull the entire plant out of your planter and see what's going on down there with the roots. I suspect there are either very few living roots hidden in the moss, or that there aren't any living roots in the moss at all.

Hello and welcome to the OB.
That yellowing leaf is not normal, you probably have some root rot. It would be best to take the plant out of the glass pot and repot into a pot with air/drainage holes. Orchids need air on their roots.
Here is the link to the thread mentioned above:
http://www.orchidboard.com/community...ends-here.html
Joann

Are there drain holes in the container this orchid is planted in??

Ahh, here we go again Zoi2!! I'm posting as you are :)