Were these mistakes, and what should I do next?

[Windwaker]

Orchids have always been my favorite flower, but my whole life I have felt too scared to try growing them, even after getting good experience as a gardener.

The other day I found some mistreated Phals for $2 and $3 at Lowe's, and decided it was the perfect chance to try them out. After reading a lot on the internet, I decided to go with s/h.

They were in bad shape though, so I repotted them before I had a chance to find Ray's website and read through it. I think although I've done a few things right, I probably also made some mistakes. I am not sure how serious they are, and what to do next. So, I am hoping the knowledgeable folks here can help. I thought I'd ask for advice before doing anything else - after readying a few threads here I am wary of doing too much too soon. But I am attached to the boogers now and would love to pull them through. Here's what I've done so far:

I took all 6 out of badly compacted bark and repotted into LECA. The plants seemed like they had gone through the desiccation/root rot cycle. I know it was not the ideal time to transplant given the stress they had been through, but I read to move them straight to the desired final state, so at the time I thought that was the best thing to do. I used ODLA from Ikea because it was the only LECA I knew about last week. I rinsed and soaked the medium and added epsom salts to one of the soaks, but not calcium nitrate (I learned about that later and will do it next time). I tried to remove as much of the organic matter stuck as possible, but left the bits that were so stuck that they would tear the roots if I tried to remove them. I cut the rotted roots with sterilized sharp shears. Each plant had on average 6 or more good roots.

Because of something I read, I left a few roots that had a black section on, if the black section had more green/healthy looking roots afterwards. I washed the roots in tap water, and repotted into the same pots they came in, which are all clear orchid pots with a raised center and holes on the bottom, about 4.5" tall by 4.5" wide (except for one plant). Those pots were placed into tall clear plastic saucers, which were filled with about 3/4" of water. I left that amount of water just stand in the saucers for most of the week.

I since switched to a mix of 1/5 tap water (300 ppm) and 4/5 distilled water. I gave them a watering with superthrive soon after repotting.

*What I know would do different next time: soak LECA in calcium nitrate, then follow with a soak in superthrive.

*What I think I did well: I put the 6 Phals in a group with 4 new ones my significant other gave me in a mini "orchid grove" on top of a low shelf with little indirect light/shade. I gave them a humidifier, and the humidity is ranging between 60-74% on their "grove". We are keeping the living room fan on low continuously for them. I ordered a heat mat and an red/blue 22w LED grow light.

*How they are responding: All 6 seem to be doing a lot better! At least almost every one of the drooping, withered, leathery, soft leaves has hydrated and is perking up. It looks like a couple plants are losing 1 leaf each, but I am not too worried about that since there are 4-5 recovering leaves left on each.

*What I am worried about:
1. Is having a pot with bottom holes sitting in a 3/4" pool of water in the outer saucer the same as having the pots with the 2 holes on the side?
2. Are the 4.5" pots too short? I know it's hard to visualize without a photo of the orchid sizes. They don't feel crammed with roots, and I don't want to pot too large, but I am wondering if that height is too short for medium sized orchids.
3. One or two orchids whose roots had black sections followed by good sections started to grow white mold in the black sections of the roots. There is also mold in the
support stakes and along the bottom of one pot. What should I do about that? Spray with peroxide? Let the pot dry (but then won't the s/h action be ruined)? Remove them from the pot, and then...?
4. Was it wrong to leave the roots with good and bad sections in the pot? Should I have cut all black sections off even if it mean losing the green portion farther down the root?
5. If those roots are left in the pots, or any green roots start to rot during the conversion, what will happen? Should I let them rot in there, or?? I am sorry if it seems silly, but I am so confused about this part. I know it would have been better if I waited until they had good, new roots growing, but they seemed to desperately need a change that I thought this couldn't be worse... and given the "go straight to the final state advice", I thought this was the best choice. But I am not sure.
6. My 4 healthy new orchids are all in flower, and keeping their flowers. They all have lots of green, healthy looking roots, so I was going to wait for them to finish blooming and put out new roots to convert to s/h. But a few are in super densely packed spaghnum, which I suspect will cause rotting at some point. What should I do about them? I would like the blooms to last as long as possible without damaging the plants, since my significant other got them as a very sweet gift to cheer me up while I put effort into nursing the rescue girls with no blooms (I cut the stalks on most of the rescues).

Thank you SO MUCH for chiming in. Any advice is welcome. Also, if any of the plants would do better not in s/h, please let me know. I really want to learn how to grow the phals in s/h, but overall I'd rather do whatever it takes for them to pull through!

[desertanimal]

1. Yes. It just means you have two pieces to carry to the sink when you water and flush.

2. Pot height will mainly affect your reservoir/non-reservoir ratio and probably ensure the death of any roots that end up in the reservoir at the start if the roots were long for the pot height. But later, roots that grow down into the reservoir will be fine. There's no real reason that that would be too short for a plant, per se, as far as I'm aware.

3. I often get some white mold growth after a new potting into S/H, and it resolves itself after a week or two. I wouldn't worry about it. If it really worries you, you could just flush more often, but it'll go away soon enough.

4. It doesn't matter, because . . .

5. if they're going to rot, it's ok for them to rot in the pots. They will just break down eventually and get flushed out. They won't hurt anything as they decompose.

6. Some people will wait until blooming is done. Some people repot regardless. If you want to be conservative, just don't overwater while they're in that tight sphagnum, and repot when you see new root growth.

I repot my phals into LECA whenever I get them. This is not necessarily because I think it's best for the plants, but because I am impatient and just want them in the substrate I prefer. The way that I have handled waiting to transition them to S/H is to treat the LECA as a traditional potting material at first (no reservoir), and then to start using a reservoir when I see new root growth. This lets me try to baby the old roots and keep them happy until new roots grow in a S/H environment and can take over supporting the plants. That said, sometimes plants that have been in damp sphag already transition seamlessly to S/H. It definitely helps if they're warm. I moved one this summer and it didn't miss a beat.

Your heat mats will serve you well. In colder climates, phals can have trouble with root loss in the winter in S/H. I can attest to that, as my plants lost most of their roots every winter when I lived in Boston!

Happy growing!


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[Ray]

Good responses, DA.

[Windwaker]

Thank you so much, desertanimal, this is very helpful and reassuring. I will just trust the process and carry on with watering.

Since I will be using a heat mat and grow light, should I fertilize with anything or use superthrive once in a while, or hold off until new roots start growing?

Also, I noticed you grow your orchids in glass vases and drain the excess water. I am pretty intrigued by this method because I love how the roots look in glass (I potted one of my rescues like this and so far, so good). How has that worked out for you in the long run?

---------- Post added at 10:50 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:49 AM ----------

Thank you, Ray! It's helpful to have good guidance and reassurance from more experienced folks here.

[desertanimal]

Originally Posted by Windwaker

Since I will be using a heat mat and grow light, should I fertilize with anything or use superthrive once in a while, or hold off until new roots start growing?

Also, I noticed you grow your orchids in glass vases and drain the excess water. I am pretty intrigued by this method because I love how the roots look in glass (I potted one of my rescues like this and so far, so good). How has that worked out for you in the long run?

You should fertilize. I follow Ray's fertilizing advice. If you fertilize often, you do so at lower concentrations than if you fertilize rarely.

That worked out fine in general. It would be a pain with a lot of plants as you have to fill them and dump them to flush. It was also tricky with tall plants and plants in bloom. But it was fine and it was free.

I did have issues with algal growth, and in one plant, it got bad enough that it clogged up the LECA. So stay on top of algae better than I did. Another trick I had is that it was VERY difficult to get a very well-grown plant out of its jar when the time came. The rigidity of the glass combined with the slightly narrower mouth than body pinned the whole root mass in, and since the roots were attached to the LECA, I couldn't get any of the LECA pieces out, even. So watch out for that as well. I've switched to standard plastic pots now for that reason. But you could avoid that with just repotting before that's a problem.

Have fun!

[Windwaker]

Thank you so much desertanimal, really appreciate it.

Interestingly, even though it's only been a week or 2, the rescue in glass seems to be doing the best with absolutely no fungus and her roots are turning the most green. We'll see how it goes. I'll have to be sure to flush well, maybe weekly, and dump the water afterwards.

So far they are all looking a lot better than when they arrived. I hope to be able to post happy pictures of them in a few months!

[desertanimal]

No worries. I, too, jumped in first with S/H because I travel sometimes and need lower-maintenance plants during those times (for house-sitters). Only after several years of growing in LECA do I now feel like I could branch out into other substrates. I feel like growing in LECA and holding that constant, and having plants that thrived, struggled and survived, struggled and died, and just plain croaked helped me to figure out how to care for things a bit better. I can't really explain it, but now i have a sense for Phals, Oncidiums and Catts what they need and how to make adjustments when they aren't getting it. I feel like if I'd grown in many different substrates, I wouldn't have learned that as fast (and I wasn't fast as it is, haha!).

[Plantcrazed101]

Is the IKEA leca okay to use?