I grow some of my orchids in vases and if I'm leaving for an extended period I will wrap a damp cloth about the roots...extends those every day or so orchids that need watering to several days.


Ryan

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That's a really good idea! I'll keep that one in mind.
That's one of the reasons I like to plant mine in baskets with sphag and charcoal. They don't need water every day then.

I just went away for 2 weeks, and had my boyfriend water the orchids at the one week mark. They were all fine when I got home, including my angraecum leonis which I grow in a vase rather than in a pot.

Aside from looking very thirsty when I got home, the only orchid that lost leaves from the dryness was my dendrobium victoria reginae. All my phals, paphs, and oncidiums were completely fine.

I've also once left a phal that was in spike without water for 3 weeks straight. It was very droppy by the time I got back to it and lost a bottom leaf... but it kept the flowers and recovered in no time.

Most orchids do prefer to be under watered rather than over watered.

I too grow some in baskets of hydroton but even then with my arid enviro I still wrap them. It's always the battled of desiccation here!!!!!!


Ryan

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Wrapping them is definitely a good idea. We get dry in the summer here, but in the winter the humidity can be 70 - 90% here in the house. I have a fan on them to be sure that they dry fairly quickly.

When I left for a ten day vacation, I watered my orchids thouroughly and kept the tempuratures a little cooler than usual. They were all fine when I got back. I used a self watering method for my mounted orchid. I used paper towels with one end in a dish of water and the other end covering the roots and it worked wonderfully!

I took a 10-day vacation last year and it was the first time that I didn't have to have someone come over to water the orchids for me.

For the orchids that needed to be watered every day (tols, mounted orchids, random water-loving houseplants), I bought a cheapo pump system that clips onto the side of a plastic 5 gallon bucket (like this one Automatic Plant Watering System with Bucket). It's a blunt instrument and poorly made - you couldn't use it year-round, but for a week or two here or there, it sure does the trick. These orchids / plants went in the sink and on the drying rack and the bucket with the pump sat on the counter. It took about 30minutes to set up and test, but then the whole system was on auto pilot. All of these plants looked good when I got back - they were well watered and no worse for the ware.

For the orchids that only need to be watered weekly or twice a week - I gave them a good soaking the morning that we left and then put them in gallon Ziploc bags with a damp paper towel. I only closed the bags half way, to allow some air circulation. For the orchids that didn't fit, I either put the bag upside-down over the orchid (so that the open end of the bag faced the ground) or I put the pot in the Ziploc bag and let the foliage stick out the top. This way each orchid had its own moisture-retaining plastic enclosure. I was a little worried about fungal issues - but committed to the experiment. I set the thermostat for 65 and left. I'm happy to say that when I returned, everything looked great and there were no fungal issues! Some of the seedlings phals looked better than when I left them!

It was a labor-intensive set up (for 40-50 orchids), but I didn't loose or damage any orchids... so worth the effort.

- J

Boy! That makes me glad that I have 80 year old Mary living only a few doors away! She looked after the whole lot, including a parrotlet, koi, fish tank and bunny.
It's good to know that If I need them there are alternatives.

Thanks so much Orchid Boy and jrodpad for you useful ideas; I may try the plastic bags on some of my orchids, for sure. My house is much too dry in the winter. I even have added a little sphagnum moss to my phals and phrags to keep more even moisture for them..... yes, am a bit concerned about the fungal issue.