Dendrobium can survive a massive abuse
 

Yesterday I learned just how sturdy Dendrobiums can be :biggrin:

A friend of mine gave me a supposedly white Dendrobium from the school she teaches at. It was kept on the windowsill at one of those large windows in a classroom. Then summer came and pupils and teachers went for a vacation. After two months she returned and found completely dried Dendrobium. She cut away all dried out canes, watered it and gave it a last chance. Soon afterwards it actually started to grow and made a nice little cane. So she went back to the old "system" - watering once a week. Next summer is getting closer and she is sure that it won't survive another summer of getting deep fried. So she gave it to me - "If it lives, then it lives. If not... well, it would have died during the summer anyway."


So for over than a year this Dendrobium went through:
- watering once a week and letting the pot sit in the remaining water
- dry air, heater from below and no shade from direct sun
- no plant food
- 2 months of direct summer sun, no water
- sphagnum in the middle
- probably it was has "tasted" some soda (cola?) as well as top of of the pot, bark and roots were black and sticky

And actually it is still living (or trying to)! :biggrin:

I repotted it on the same day, as it didn't look too good. And for the first time I used glows as I had no clue what that black and sticky stuff was. Half of the roots fell off with the pieces of bark as soon as I got it out of the pot. In the picture you can see the remaining roots before washing/cleaning. Some more fell off during the cleaning process. Surprisingly I found multiple really good looking and growing roots coming from the cane with leaves. I kept the weird looking cane with keikis untouched and removed only the worse looking roots, so it would have something to hold it in the pot.

I am beginner at growing orchids so let see how it does under my care :)

What I learned - Dendrobiums can take a massive abuse and can still survive!

I'm sure it will reward you for saving its life! Good job!

Yey, keep the green going and all the best of luck!

Yay! You are its hero now, I am sure it will thrive with year round care 😜

Thanks for the good luck wishes! :)

I always thought that orchids are fragile plants, but after seeing this one I have started to see them as quite sturdy. So many plants would have died just from that water-less summer! But this one got back on its feet just like that :D

1,5months has passed and I got good news and bad news :)

Good news - There is a new growth which grows by hours, not by days.

Bad news - What is this yellow edge? It started while ago from the top, so I cut the top, cleaned leaf with peroxide and used cinnamon on the cut. Some time passed, cutline dried out and leaf started to turn yellow. I cut it again, cleaned and powdered... and again - time passes, cut heals, yellow line appears.

I would gladly cut whole leaf off, but... The plan has only 3 (2,5 now) leaves. Turns out that top leaf is partly torn off as well. The third leaf has been yellowish from the very beginning.

What should I do? Will it be able to maintain itself and those growths with just two leaves?

I only have 1 dendrobium, a noid den-phal, so I am hardly qualified to give a definitive answer but I have noticed that the leaves on mine died off and new growth started. I accidentally scraped off an "eye" trying to clean off the papery residue on the canes and despaired that I had most likely killed the plant as it came to me with no viable roots (I had to secure it to a stake to mobilize it). A few months later, to my delight, it began growing a new cane from the other side...hooray! Then that new growth was eaten by mice this past winter and I fell back into despair...how could it ever survive? I continued to care for it, certain it would just die but now it has 2 new canes growing, one about 2" and the other about 1" and has just begun putting out new roots. They are much hardier than I ever imagined and I find that the ones that do poorly are mostly reacting to me "loving" them too much. Congrats on your new addition, I hope it thrives for you :)

Dens are tough. Hard canes unbelieveably so. I threw out a couple of canes from a rescue project (two years in a greenhouse (not mine) with zero care, just as and wne watering from an auto system. They all looked like dead sticks when I got them.

Most came on quite fast, but two canes were beyond that so I threw them out. Then I thought "What the hell." got them out the bin, and put them horizontal in fine bark, with sphag wrapped round them. To my surprise, both have thrown a shoot.

Orchids are a maddening combination of tough, but sensitive. They can live without roots and grow new ones, but a little bit of water in a crown can quickly lead to rot. I recently divided a Den Little Andre and I tossed a few of the nasty old leafless canes into the bushes in front of our balcony. A few weeks later, I noticed that one of the old canes was still green and had put out some roots! It gets watered every day by the automatic sprinklers and is in a bright, but shaded spot. I can't wait to see what it looks like at the end of this summer.

There are Dendrobium species that tolerate the abuse of a couple months without water, and those that consider it business as usual!