I've been a bit quiet on the S/H updates lately. This is because I was trying new orchids and gathering more experience with my existing orchids (especially recovering my phals). I have a renewed interest in S/H and have converted more orchids.
I want to start by discussing old mistakes and add some new experimental S/H candidates!
First, let me update the phals. Good news this time!
A year ago, I converted my phals to S/H in a cool climate at a low light time of the year (autumn/winter time). This was a big mistake and although they all survived, they did lose all their roots. They are getting healthier though and the leaves are now growing to a more reasonable size. Last year, I was continually experimenting on them, repotting them and disturbing them until I ended up in a downward spiral of root loss. I recovered them for a few months in sphagnum and tried again. I converted much healthier orchids with nice, healthy and INTACT roots. I suggest putting a phal like mine with messed up roots into moss so it can grow some nicer roots before attempting conversion - as there is no pseudobulbs and some nice roots deep in the LECA beads will help a LOT. Otherwise, everything dies and you just have a dehydrated mess on your hands. I currently have 18 phals growing in semi hydro but I have to say they have been my most challenging conversion.
The next phal was completely rootless last winter, it lost about 8 leaves. It's now happy in semi hydro, LOL. It has bloomed, despite having very small new leaves they are getting better.
Now, issues:
Root tips. The roots above the LECA don't dig down very well into the media.
Unexplained root tip death:
Shrinking, dying root tip:
I am genuinely afraid for these root tips as I don't know what to do to help them except mist them when I have time. I love how they curl around in the deeper layers but the surface roots do not do well for me and was part of the reason I had so many troubles last year - even the phals with new roots were left with just a few short stumps above the media!
The next orchids:
Cattleya seedlings!
I love these! These are both RLC Liu's Joyance
They arrived in a coconut shell and were pretty mangled when I freed them. As you know, cattleyas are a bit funny about their roots and they didn't really have anything very good on transferring over. They were masquerading as a single orchid but once freed from their coconut prison, it was two extra small ones together. They immediately took off in semi hydro without any issues.
Roots:
These are all new and I don't know if the photos actually show how small these seedlings are.
Another cattleya seedling: BLC Nakornchaisri delight. Again, trapped in a rotting coconut.
As you can see, there are no weird root tip death issues here and I have not experienced this at all in the cattleya alliance. It looks a bit lopsided but that is just how it grows and it is very secure in the media (I could probably lift the whole thing by the orchid but it's a delicate seedling so I won't!).
Roots:
As you can see, I do not manage my algae very well. I just ignore it for the most part. The roots are hard to see but they're alive and doing well.
Cattleyas show a huge amount of adaptability in their old VS new roots. Where the old roots are completely unable to cope in the new medium and the new roots are completely different and actually thrive in constant wet conditions. With phals, however, sometimes if you have a good, healthy, growing root you don't always lose it. If it's old and broken up/cut etc it will have quite a low probability of survival.
I have plenty of other orchids to discuss!!!
My future posts will cover vandaceous, adult cattleyas, den phals, den nobiles, paphiopedilums, miltoniopsis and more on oncidium intergenerics (if you haven't had enough of those yet!). I have my first catasetum-type (cycnodes wine delight) which may end up in S/H.
As you can see, I have been orchid shopping this year!!!
Happy growing to all and I hope your orchids are thriving, however you decided to grow them!!!