Help me rescue my orchids! - Orchid Board

na06003 · #1 06-23-2010, 07:19 PM

Hi everyone! I am new here and am in desperate need of help!

I bought three orchids last summer, but unfortunately did not do much research on their care before hand.
One of the orchids (a large phal) rotted completely and died... I'm assuming from over watering and lack of sunshine. The other two orchids did okay... until my cat got a hold of them!!!

LUCKILY my boyfriend was majoring in plant biology. He took them from me and put them in the green house at school and took care of them for several months. In May I went to retrieve them from him to take back home and was pleased to find that all the leaves had grown back and there was even new root growth!!!

So I took them home, put them far away from the kitties, and found a spot that I thought would be plenty of sunshine. I started doing my research and getting excited about actually caring for them this time around.... and then at the end of the day, my sunny spot I picked out had sunburned my poor plants!!!!

A few days later the leaves were getting dark and mushy. I did a bit of reading on this forum and decided to cut off the mushy leaves and put cinnamon on the cuts. From that point, the mushyness at least stopped spreading.

A few days later I decided to repot them, thinking that might be better for them since they were still in their original pots anyway. So I cleaned all of the moss out of their roots, and cut the dead roots away. I put them in clean pots with orchid bark only. It's been about a week and so far they look okay... but they still look very sad.

I've been giving a good watering once a week, but misting them daily. They are sitting in a window behind a sheer curtain, so they are getting some mild filtered light.

What can I do to help them heal and to encourage new growth? Are the steps I took correct? Will they make it??

In the future, once they are revived, how can I be a better mommy to them?

camille1585 · #2 06-24-2010, 12:44 AM

Sorry to hear about all the bad luck you've had with these.

Usually it's a good idea to adjust plants to light gradually, and keep an eye on them in the beginning to avoid sunburn. Normally sunburn won't cause lesions that spread after the burn occurs, but I've had that on one of my phals. So if the mush was spreading you did the right thing. As for sunburn after care, there's not much you can do except be patient. As long as there's healthy roots, the plants will grow normally, and hopefully you'll get a new leaf soon. It will be years until the plants shed and replace all the mangled leaves. Until then, they'll be a bit ugly, but that won't stop them from blooming!
Repotting was also a good idea, and was something to be done even if they hadn't burned.

If you have any photos that would be nice, just to see if everything is ok!

na06003 · #3 06-24-2010, 10:58 AM

Thanks for your help! I'm glad to hear I did something right!

I tried to load pics yesterday but for some reason it wouldn't work. I'm about to head out of town for the day, but when I get home tomorrow I will mess around and see if I can get them to load!

Now one of the orchids has black developing around the base of the plant... but the roots are still looking good.

Once I get some pics up... maybe someone can help me ID. I know the one with the black developing is a phal. The other one I am not sure what it is... When it was actually blooming last year, the flower was green

That one also seemed to handle the sun a lot better. I was able to keep most of the leaves. The phal only has one leaf that I could keep

quiltingwacko · #4 06-24-2010, 11:44 AM

I know it is discouraging to lose our orchids. That said, you will still get the hang of each orchid's needs if you keep trying. Identifying them will help too. There is a lot to be said for persistance. Keep trying with the orchids and the picture uploading too. CArol