Hi, bevo. I've heard some formidable orchid growers say you're not an "expert" til you've killed at least 100 orchids. A lot of experts here by that definition, and I'm busy working on mine.

I wouldn't try to grow your phals in water. What you say you've done is what I believe is the right thing to do with phailing phals, except that I use sphag/clay pot for anything with compromised roots, or no roots at all.

Roots grow great in sphag, it provides a little humidity around the plant, and I believe sphag has rot-inhibiting qualities.

1. bagging the leaves. Yes. For a plant with smallish roots, I would use two small (sandwich) baggies over the leaves, one baggie on each side of the plant. Keep the crown area open and unbagged. This keeps the leaf areas humid but leaves the crown open to the air.

2. Rooting hormones. Yes. In my experience, rooting hormones work fine on orchids, as does the same kind of "soak/float" that you would use on any plant with de-hydrated leaves (including lettuces).

The hormones can speed up the re-rooting so that the roots arrive before the last leaf gives up the ghost, which I why I use them. Some also contain a fungicide that helps keep rot from spreading.

A friend of mine calls root hormones "Toe of Bat", but for me, Toe of Bat works. Certainly worth a try on a compromised plant. What do you have to lose?

3. Unsoaked bark can be kind of hard to hydrate, so some people soak it for 24 hours before using it. I don't use it, so am only reporting what I've read that others do. But that's probably why your plant with roots started to desiccate.

4. Spritzing. Spritzing as carefully as you do should be ok, and you can add maybe 1/4 to 1/8 strength (ie a dilution at 1/4 to 1/8 the strength they recommend. I use a medicine dropper to measure this. Be sure to spray the underside of the leaves with this when you do it.

There's disagreement about whether foliar feeding works on orchids, but it won't hurt, and I believe I notice a tiny bit of perking up in a compromised plant from this.

5. Fertilizing. Don't fertilize an ailing plant. Wait til it starts to "look good". Once you see them start to revive a little, or when you are sure the roots are growing, then you can start fertilizing with a "weakly" app 1/4 dilution.

6. Warmth and light. Warmth is *good*, and the light you are giving them should be ok.

Using your method, I believe you can get quite of few of this kind of plant going again. And I think you are right to try. You'll learn a lot doing it, even if you fail.

I do want to disagree that you are a "sucker" if you bought plants at Lowe's. I bought two $9.99 "promo" NOID plants at HD Saturday, following a tip from someone here about them. All of that batch looked beautiful and healthy. Most or all had two spikes. I repotted my two, so I know they had good roots.

Among the batch were two that I *know* are phals with AM/AOS awards-- Baldan's Kaleidoscope and Newberry Parfait. A steal at $9.99-- you betcha. I have those, and paid a lot more than that for them.

So, don't call yourself a sucker. IMO, "suckers" are people who will pass up a beautiful, healthy plant they would love and enjoy or might give to someone who would love and enjoy because they're being offered at Lowe's.

Good luck. I hope you succeed. It's a big thrill when you do. :)

I got my two first orchids on sale for 9.99 as well! :D

I agree with mehitabel about everything and esp. the sphag - I have found it much more gentle on rootless plants than dry bark..even bark that has been presoaked dries too much, but that's in my conditions of a centrally heated (aka really dry) house. Bark is okay with established plants or actively growing ones when I repot, but not for rootless ones :S

Is your light a 120W equivalent or an actual 120W compact fluorescent? If it is 120W equivalent, it won't do anything 2 ft away...that said, since you have them in front of a window, and you have the other light it might be okay. I don't want to tell you to increase light crazily because I've actually burned phals I was trying to reroot because I took the 'light stimulates new root growth' advice a bit to the extreme and ended up burning the crap out of the plants!

To upload photos, you will need to find a photo hosting website (ie flickr or photobucket), upload your files from your computer to their server, and then you can link to your image here to your flickr image URL.

Good luck! It's a real challenge getting new roots in the winter, but if you can do it, you will feel a great sense of accomplishment. And if you can get them to flower for you after that...Well!

I got a $1 phal from Lowe's this spring which was just done flowering that had half of the biggest leaf sunken in (from rot?), maybe frozen by being too close to the window on a cold day?? I cut the leaf back to good tissue then unpotted it. Ended up being two plants with little to no roots for each one. I cut off the spike and dead roots and put each plant in separate pots of spagnum moss. I just put them on my shelf under lights and watered like normal (1 to 2 times a week). They both now have lots of roots and new leaves. The half leaf finally yellowed so I pulled it of. I'm waiting (a few years probably) to see what the flowers look like, since it is a noid. Good luck, Tom

Thanks for all the info. I think I will try the one with small roots in spahg as well, instead of bark. What is a NOID?

It is a plant with no ID, hence NOID (as in you don't know it's grex or name or parents or anything)

Tom if the phals have enough light, water, warmth, etc. to regrow roots and leaves, you can bring a phal back from death's doorstep to bloom in a year.

Brooke

bevo you received all my knowledge on the other thread - my pipeline is empty.

Brooke

Bevo- I see you sorted out how to post! Nice! You've added your lighting conditions. Thanks for the addtional info! The light information is the key to why your orchids failed. It is ultimately 99% of why orchids fail indoors. Lack of light as was suspected but not confirmed on the other thread. A 120 w equivelent (28 w actual) 1-2 feet away is underlight Bevo. It's adding 20 fc's to your your orchid. x 3 or 4 is what a standard phal will thrive in run time as you have it. The addition of supplimental light will increase the temps around the plant when used less than 1 foot away,inches are better It will take a little time to acclimate the plants to the light increase. At this time of the year you have little to no natural sunlight in z-4. The orchid gets very minimal light from the window.

The "Spot Grow" is not something that I would choose for my light banks. Boiled down, it is a more expensive version of a blue tinted incandescent light bulb. It honestly would be better off as your make up lighting. The CFL light can be brought in to a foot or less. The plants are ill and the cause is unarguably underlighting.

Light needs to get sorted out first and foremost, if you really want to have a shot at re-habbing these guys. Right now you are at a disadvantage. All the re-hab "techniques" are not going to help the 2 plants that are in frail condition. This is real work, re-habbing something that far gone. There is no easy way out, no short cuts, magic potions or methods, just good steady culture (care) ,light and time.

Books - Read as much as you can. Taylor's Guide to Orchids is 66 little pages of exactly how to care for just about any orchid. It is one of the top "Orchid Bibles". It can be had at amazon for 2-3$, used. There are no complicated techniques in it, just good straight "How to Basic's". Ortho's All About Orchids is another. If you are interested in continuing with orchids, you will find the book an immense help in understanding the basics of orchid growing. A good foundation of solid culture and lights are the only things you are missing.:-)

Temps- second most important issue.

70 is very low for an ill phal. It may be warm to some humans but not for a tropical plant. 76º-80º is what the plant will like. No lower than 65 night for an ill plant. Night temp differentials aren't really a concern until the plants have some roots. They will need consistent temps, light and some humidity. Bevo do you have a timer for your lights? The more consistent you can be, the better the orchids will respond. You honestly have little room for error at this point. You will learn regardless of outcome and that's always good thing.

I had upwards of 20 phals left on my doorstep this past year, alone.(Long story) All in varying condition. Spag and bag just doesn't work unless you have the light to support it. Even then, I don't find it an effective technique, especially if you are new to orchids. There are less risky alternatives. Indoors an 85w actual cfl compact floursecent (150w equivelent) and the window would give them the light they need to recover and continue to grow and eventually bloom. (2, 42 watts would also work) . 3 or 4 times what you currently have. There are many posts about large cfl's and sources. Use the GW search engine to find them. They have been posted on the orchids board over the past few months. 1 came back to the 1st page recently.

I haven't seen a photo but if you can successfully pull them out of their brush with death it will be about 2 years give or take for the orchid to have a decent bloom. Orchids will throw out a spike sometimes right before they die. Their way of trying to pass on their genetics. If that should happen, cut the spike off. It will drain the life out of the plant. It is easier said than done, but the blooms will not be great, if they actually open at all.

I have not read the responses to the thread. If no one has mentioned it, Phals do not enjoy saucer methods. You might be thinking of paphs. Sick phals will die in a saucer. Pot your phals up in some very fine seedling bark, a little perlite perhaps and a light morning and afternoon mist at the media. Water well every 7 days when the light is sorted out, half that in your current situation.

A Clay pot would be better than plastic, if you are underlight and an over-waterer. Mist the media daily, event drape a little plastic wrap very loosely around the top if you go unglazed ceramic. Ambient humidity with a wood stove would require a large effort on your part. The plant can live without high ambient humidity, but not without light heat and good watering skills. You have seen what lack of light and too much water has done, it would only make sense to go in the opposite direction at this point!

Clara

I am implementing these instructions. If I can figure out how to post photos, I will upload pix of my set-up. I now have 2 lights. They are called "Ott-Lite"(s). Has anyone heard of them? They have "U" shaped bulbs, I think they are fluorescent bulbs, they say 13W. Are all watts created equal? Because that's considerably less than a 60W Gro-Light!

Bevo, to post a picture go to photobucket (.com) or a similar picture hosting site. Sign up for an account and upload your pictures. You can then use the address they give you (its right under the picture) and put it in the Optional Link URL with your post.

Or if you want to get a little fancier I suggest reading the following thread.

Best,
Jem

Bevo, I believe that with the materials you get with your curved fluorescents is information of an equivalency to incandescents in terms of light intensity. Yours will be more than 13W equivalent, but I couldn't say what exactly without checking.

The Ott website (or a phone call to them) should tell you.

Good luck.

I used to have OTT tubes. They are expensive Bevo! Oh Dear. You went backwards :-)) Can you return them? Yes 13w is 13 w. All watts are created equal. Alllumens are not. 5500-6500K. The curly CFL's. Actual wattage is what you want to look at and lumen output . Igorne the equivelent. When I bought OTT I had questions on lumens. Called them. They were clueless. It took 3 transfers. Their lumen output is not that great. a cool white and warm white had a better output

Clara

When you say the Ott bulb is expensive, what, roughly, are we talking about? The fixture also came with a "vision" bulb. If it's any good, I may keep them for when I work (I make jewelry.) Where can I get decent lamps?

My boyfriend thinks I've gone crazy(er.) I'm obsessed with my plants. I keep telling him how my new friends are telling me to do this and that to my phals. He's like "can you see these friends, or do you just hear their voices. Let me know if they start telling you to kill people, 'cause I want to be the first one out of the house..."

too funny. Lightbulbs direct dot com. compact flourescents is what you want 42w or 85 w actual with a 6500K lumen rating

Hi... Well, this is sad... My very first phal, that I tried to keep alive, has now lost all roots & all leaves. I thought I properly followed all advice on cutting its spike, re-potting, etc. Somehow, though, it didn't work. I'm left with a little brown hard crown. I've actually heard that someone brought one like this back to life. Is that even possible?

Anything is possible, but you would be better off starting off again with a nice new Phalaenopsis, especially since it is almost summer in the USA. Cutting the spike, repotting etc will not achieve anything if your growing conditions are not good.

Better off starting a new thread if you are still puzzled.

I've put the AOS culture notes in the link.

AOS culture notes

Thanks