Four Different Phals with Four Different States of Health (help greatly appreciated!)

[Rexcalibur]

Hello!

I am soooo sorry in advance for this huge textwall post... I need so much help . I just don't know what to do re/ when/how to water these gals and/or if I should repot them. Any and all advice is appreciated.

I've been doing as much research as I can on taking care of my phals - browsing forums, watching videos, reading articles, using lunch breaks at work to ask coworkers for input. I've been losing a lot of sleep trying to do some research and getting totally different answers per each question... so I figured asking some experts on this site about my orchids in particular would help me out.

I just graduated last June and everyone I know knows orchids are my favorite flowers but I don't have any. So I ended up getting four on June 12 and another one on July 10 - all as gifts! I am dying trying to juggle taking care of them right now, as I've never raised flowers before and am so scared to kill them haha. I hope that covers why on earth I have so many orchids as a newbie.

Any help I can get with what health problems my orchids have and what I can do to help them is tremendously appreciated. Hopefully me naming my orchids helps pinpoint which one is undergoing what health problem haha.

I have a ton of extra plastic pots and extra holed ceramic pots with saucers for drainage, cinnamon, and a stack of sphagnum moss ready if I need to repot any of them. I need to buy something to spray/mist them with though, as well as something to sterilize my scissors with...

I have a LOOOOT of photos to share for this since I really need all the help I can get... I am breaking them up into different posts. This post will have all of Sophie's pics.
All photos were taken on Aug 7, unless otherwise noted in the file name.

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CONTEXT

I live in Sunny San Diego.

All of my orchids were sitting on this windowsill up until last week. The left-most side gets the most sunlight. I have a West-facing window - it is the only window in my entire apartment. My room gets *direct* sunlight for approx. three hours a day; I'm facing a canyon, so the trees eat up most of the sunlight.

I have no air conditioning, but my apartment as a whole is extremely humid compared to what it's like outside. I have three fans running (only one in my room), may get a fourth one soon so my dog doesn't die from heat. I never have the fans directly on the orchids, though since I've removed them from the windowsill, the tower fan in my room has been facing in their general direction.

The window is never open during the hours I'm at work - my dog has separation anxiety and because he barks every time I leave for work (6am every day), I've had to keep it shut because my neighbors are complaining. It is open whenever I'm home, though.

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When I first got my orchids (Sophie excluded), I overwatered them pretty badly for the first few weeks - i.e. 1/4 a water each bottle every day. Since July I've been doing the ice cube method by placing 2-3 ice cubes atop the media once a week (Wednesdays).

They are all potted in plastic pots with holes in the bottom for drainage, and placed within ceramic/faux-leather pots. There is room between the bottom of the plastic pot and the bottom of the ceramic pot.

I've removed all my Phals off the windowsill end of last week, so no more direct sunlight, though I'm concerned the lighting in my room is not enough. As mentioned before, my room is only bright for three hours a day.

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Sophie (blue vase)

This one was the one given to me in July, bought from Von's. It's been sitting on the windowsill on the far right and has been getting the least amount of sunlight until two weeks ago, when I moved it to the far left. (Like the others, it's no longer on the windowsill.)

Her media seems entirely composed of bark chunks.

She was perfectly healthy up until like three days ago. The leaves are all drooping now when they were not before. While the top leaves are still waxy/firm, the second- and third-tier leaves are yellow-green. The one fourth-tier/very bottom leaf is completely yellow and ready to fall off. The second-tier leaves downwards are all soft to the touch.

The roots are (or were?) all green. I'm seeing a couple of brown ones, but I can't really tell without removing the plant from the pot entirely. There's a couple of silvery ones.

Today I can see the veins/discoloration in a few of the blooms when I could not yesterday. Actually the beautiful vibrant white-blue coloration of the flowers that were gorgeous on Thursday are almost completely gone today... (cf photos for comparison)

** Please ignore the white dots on Sophie's roots... those are from orchid food that spilled when I was watering her last week. I haven't removed them at the time of the photos haha. **

cont. in next posts

[Rexcalibur]

Mathilda (white vase)

Her media is pure sphagnum moss.

Her stalk has been a dark brown up until last week, when it turned bright brown (suddenly) and all flowers fell off over two days. Once the last bloom dropped, I trimmed the stalk at the node and dabbed cinnamon at the top. Seems it's growing a reddish-brown color right now (was not this color yesterday), so I'm not sure if I should cut the stalk again further down by the crown.

The top new leaf is growing bigger every day, though it's pretty reddish-purple (though the interior is a healthy green). I noticed some of the new roots growing had this too. I figured it was getting sunburnt so that's what prompted me to remove everything from the windowsill.

The leaves are all waxy/firm in texture, though the middle and bottom ones are drooping.

The crown's kind of purple-green, but it's been like that since I've received it (with a dark brown stem), and is free from signs of mold. New roots are growing out of it...

I can barely see the roots at all beyond the surface roots, which were green but now have a bit of a brownish tinge to them. The quality of the flimsy plastic holed pot she's in is not that great. :/

I don't know if she needs to be repotted or not.

cont. in next post

[Rexcalibur]

Olivia (brown pot w/ flowers)

Her media is entirely of sphagnum moss, but the giant pot she's sharing with two other plants (another phal [Phoebe] and a bamboo, each in their own plastic pot) has a mix of sphagnum moss and bark chunks.

Her top two leaves are waxy/firm, though one is drooping. The two middle leaves are both leathery/soft/wilty, but are green. I can't remember when the bottom yellow leaves fell off.

Only one flower is wilted with a white stem. One is starting to wilt, but the rest look lovely.

All the surface roots look healthy - green/silvery (haven't watered this week) with bright green tips. But the vast majority of the other roots within the moss look brown/mushy/dead from the outside.

My coworker who is versed with orchids told me not to do anything with the orchid this week - no watering, repotting, trimming, etc. But I'm super concerned if I need to repot this baby now or wait until another time and continue as normal next week (e.g. watering with two ice cubes once a week).

cont. in next post

[Rexcalibur]

Phoebe (brown pot, no flowers)

Just like Phoebe, but she has two stalks - neither of which were even fully grown when I received it.

On Thursday, she was repotted into a thicker plastic pot with drainage holes and with sphagnum moss as the media (as that was what she was originally planted in). All dead roots have been cut off and tipped with cinnamon to prevent diseases... but literally almost every single root is now gone except for the few growing surface roots. I'd have to unpot her again to show what the root system by the crown (which is green/healthy) looks like because she has none aside from the few healthy surface roots.

I also cut the stalks further back, closer to the crown as well that day.

The leaves are all waxy/firm, though the middle leaves are drooping, and the single bottom leaf has a yellow stripe.

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Phew, that's it! Took me over two hours to type and gather photos omg

I had a fifth one, Chloe, who I had to throw away even though all the flowers were in bloom. All the leaves were withered/leathery - which I thought was normal for a while but then grew concerned - and when removing it from the pot, it just smelled like death.

This was I think a week before July and what caused me to realize I was overwatering them up until then. So I'm concerned these phals are just now showing health problems that have been dormant since June I just don't know what to do in terms of repotting, if I should trim and repot, how much watering I should do w/ ice cube methodology, good placement for lighting, if too many fans/too humid/not humid enough... I might cry if I lose another orchid haha.

Thank you sooooo much for any help anyone here can pitch in!!

[estación seca]

Phals are from warm places. Ice cubes never, ever fall from the sky and land on Phal roots in the wild. Ice cubes are murder weapons for Phals. Stop using ice cubes on orchids.

Your plants look like they've been too wet for too long. The stems and/or roots are rotting on the blue one, and the one you showed unpotted. This also happened to the one you threw away.

The entire pot contents of Phals should dry out completely between waterings, especially sphagnum moss. If they don't dry out they are prone to root rot. It can take moss a very long time to dry out in humid weather.

People who tend to water too much often do better growing Phals in very large chunks of bark. It is harder to keep them too wet when there are lots of big air spaces between the large bark chunks. Keeping Phals in sphagnum moss is difficult for most beginners, because it can stay wet for so long.

Your blue-flowered plant is very sick from overwatering. I would cut off the bloom stalks and enjoy them in a vase. The plant is too sick to support them.

The one in the white pot isn't rotting yet, as far as I can tell. But it is at risk. If you're going to use sphagnum moss for your Phals, read the thread in the beginners forum here about using wooden cooking skewers to check how wet the medium is in the pot.

The one you repotted only has a few roots on top, because the rest rotted. Using the skewer will let you know when to water again.

I strongly recommend you unpot the blue one right now, and remove all the medium from its roots. Let it dry overnight. Tomorrow when you get home from work, cut off all the dead roots. Live roots are firm. They are green or white, sometimes light brown. Dead roots are mushy, slimy, black or dark brown. Let the plant dry for another day. Then read some of the threads here in Orchid Board on rerooting rootless Phals. It might survive, but it might not.

I personally would not use sphagnum for potting medium. I would use large chunky bark. I know there are people who are successful with sphagnum moss, but there are a lot more people who aren't.

Phals are shade plants. They shouldn't have sun shining on them. Bright shade is fine, or light through a sheer curtain - but not through a window screen. That would be too much light.

Read through the sticky thread in the beginners forum, The Phal abuse ends here.

[Rexcalibur]

Estacion, thank you SO much for the detailed reply, especially with what to do with my poor blues. I really appreciate it!!

I've been using ice since the little instruction tag that came with the blue flowers actually said to put two or three ice cubes atop the bark once a week. Thank you for letting me know that's definitely not what I should be doing.

[Helene]

Agree with Estación

The blue fading: Sophie have been artificial colored- you can see it on the leaves- when they yellow they still have this blueish color in their veins.
Next time it will give you beautiful white flowers.

Most people know this, but just mentioning in case you didnt know.


If you have it in bark, you can water very often without watering too much- as long as they dont sit in water.
Moss is, like Estación said, more difficult to handle regarding watering. I use both, but most of mine are in bark and/or leca.

Good luck with your plants- they are really nice


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[Helene]

Yeah, and no ice… 😜😎
Cant believe they actually recommend that.



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[Pattywack]

I agree with estacion seca and with Helene completely. One more thing though, do not put cinnamon on the roots or tips of roots. It is fine for leaf cuts or bloom stalks but it will desiccate what roots you have left.

Good luck, I hope they will improve for you.

[Rexcalibur]

Helene and Pattywack, thank you both as well so much for your input! I can't express how grateful I am to have received replies so quickly here. I wish I had signed up sooner - I might've been able to prevent all these illnesses weeks ago.

I did not get home last night until passed 2:30am, but I am going to unpot my blues right now and follow Estacion's advice. I'll post updates on how she's doing later... Hopefully I still have time to save her - she doesn't have that stench of death just yet.

I'm getting my CEO at work (who is surprisingly a huge orchid fan!) to look at the other phals tomorrow and let me know what to do in terms of trimming, watering methods, and possible repotting. I need all the input I can get at this point. At least right now I know exactly what not to do from here onward ahhh.

I'm definitely going to spend a lunch break reading through that thread mentioned as well - seems like I'll get a lot more useful advice out of the direct replies there than from all these sites recommending too many options / harmful methodology. I'm still a bit miffed the instruction tag was basically telling me to kill my blues