I am a novice, is this sunburn?

[AnonYMouse]

Astrid, looking at your pic #2, yours might actually be variegated. Do you know if that plant has amabilis or aphrodite in it's background?

[astrid]

Originally Posted by AnonYMouse

Astrid, looking at your pic #2, yours might actually be variegated. Do you know if that plant has amabilis or aphrodite in it's background?

It is not variegated. This yellow edging appeared all of a sudden and the plant has quit thriving. I think it is a symptom of an illness. The plant has plenty of healthy roots but quit growing its new leaf, while its neighbor has been just vigorously growing.

The plant was all green for over a year, then this showed up and the plant is behaving as though it is ill now.

[dmagnan]

well I'm not going to just toss it, regardless, although I hope it's nothing serious like you're saying. Worst-case scenario sounds like it just doesn't grow well or takes a long time to recover, that doesn't seem like a good reason to kill it.

Anyways, after getting it I did actually take it out of the pot to check the roots and loosen the dense ball of moss around the roots, so it seems likely that between that, transportation, and being in the store, that it could have been damaged. But it hasn't lost any flowers or buds and buds are still developing at about 1 every 2 days, so I'm not going to worry about its growth just yet.

(I also drilled a hole in the bottom of the ceramic pot and got rid of the flimsy plastic pot inside the ceramic--it really couldn't be more obvious that the nurseries are selling flowers and not plants)

[astrid]

Originally Posted by dmagnan

well I'm not going to just toss it, regardless, although I hope it's nothing serious like you're saying. Worst-case scenario sounds like it just doesn't grow well or takes a long time to recover, that doesn't seem like a good reason to kill it.

Anyways, after getting it I did actually take it out of the pot to check the roots and loosen the dense ball of moss around the roots, so it seems likely that between that, transportation, and being in the store, that it could have been damaged. But it hasn't lost any flowers or buds and buds are still developing at about 1 every 2 days, so I'm not going to worry about its growth just yet.

(I also drilled a hole in the bottom of the ceramic pot and got rid of the flimsy plastic pot inside the ceramic--it really couldn't be more obvious that the nurseries are selling flowers and not plants)

Fun fact:
When you're new to the hobby, you might develop this incredibly strong aversion to growing things in sphagnum moss because "roots need to breathe" and "they'll all rot off" HOWEVER it can be used as a proper growing media without issues.
I grow my paphiopedilums in it, and while my phals are blooming and new from the store, I leave them in the sphagnum moss.

The issue is that people tend to be heavy-handed with watering and that will cause the roots to get sick and rot off if done in combination with the water-retentive sphagnum moss.

Each potting mix is suited to a certain climate in combination with certain watering habits, and if you match all the factors up, you can grow a number of orchids in a number of different potting mixes and they'll be just fine.

Also, if you see an orchid potted in "dirt" this is actually probably promix, which is water-retentive but not harmful to the orchid unless you overwater it!

Hmm... one other thing!
When you're new to the hobby you may think, "Oh I just can't toss it, that's heartless how could someone do that!!"
Haha but once you're in it for a while, you think, "I should toss that... no ... let's wait another 6 months and watch it die slowly, then toss it!"
Also if you ask all the weirdos on here, they'll tell you that "the more orchids you kill, the better! It teaches you how to care for them..." what a morbid bunch!!

The moral of that story is that even experienced growers kill their plants on a somewhat regular basis and that's just the way things go!!