Psycopsis orchid care help needed (sorry for the long post)

[yeoshua88]

I have been growing phals and oncidium type orchids on windowsill sucessfully for about 6 years now and about 3 years ago I thought I would try my luck at growing psycopsis orchids. The issue I am having is that I have had my psycopsis for 3 years now and I got it about a year from when it should have been flowering size. During that time it has attempted to put up 2 leaves both of which have died once they get full size. It has never flowered and 3 years out from when I got it the plant is still the same size with just 2 poor leaves. I thought maybe it was just to young and if I got an older one I would have more sucessess but with similar results. The new one was flowering size and had many leaves. I got it 4 months ago and it was set up in what appears to be a moss/dirt medium. In the past 2 or 3 weeks the new psycopsis has started losing leaves as well (3 so far). Clearly I am missing something rather integral to the care of this plant and would appriciate any input from growers. My current set up uses a mix of sphagnum moss (30%) and woodchips (70%). I have them under a growlight for about 6 hours a day and they get indirect shaded sunlight throughout the day due to the location of my window. My humidity fluctuates between 30% in the winter (I try for higher but it is hard) and 60-70% in the warmer months. Temperatures fluctuate between 65 degrees in the winter and 80 degrees in the summer. I water my psycopsis about once every 5 days depending on when the medium dries out. I place the plants under cool running tap water for 3-8 minutes depending on the time of year. I try to fertalize once every 2-3 months but to be fair this is pretty sporadic and I have never been great about fertalizing.

[Ray]

If the potting medium is reasonably "open" and airy, I recommend not letting it dry out between waterings. Don't let the mix be soppy, but drying is unnecessary.

You're going to need to be better about fertilizing. A dilute fertilizer applied every week is far superior to every 2-3 months, or more.

[Jinh]

My Psychopsis was in a bark mix and I watered every 2-3 days. I just repotted it into a Repotme mix with sphagnum and bark, so now it’s every 4-6 days. I fertilize weakly every week. Right now it has 2 new growths, so I fertilize every other water and it is under a grow light about 14 hours a day.

If yours was putting out new growth I think you definitely should have been fertilizing more.

[estación seca]

If your new growths all died it's likely you were underwatering, or the roots were rotten. These don't like repotting so you need to be careful with checking roots. Many people pot them in large chunky medium and water more frequently as a result. This often makes repotting easier.