A wonderful day to all fellow orchid growers! I am here to address my headache from a newly purchased vanda. The tag says Vanda sanderiana, but I do believe it's a hybrid due to the presence of spur (based from the photo sent by the seller) as real sanderianas do not have spur at all -making them distinct from other vanda species. Anyway, I'll now tell the issue of this vanda.

I ordered this plant from an online seller in facebook. The photos of the plant she sent to me were pretty good and saw no issue at all. However, after I carefully inspected it upon arrival last week, I learned that it was suffering from a magnesium deficiency due to the uneven color of the bottom leaves. The deficiency is not totally severe but not mild either. It can kill the entire plant within few weeks if not intervened. I contacted the seller and asked replacement if in case the plant will continue to suffer and die because of it. But the seller seemingly doesn't want to take responsibility and said that it came to her like that. I don' t want to loose the plant either so I assured her that it won't happen..

After a week, I added some epsom salt to the water to supplicate the plant's need for Magnesium and ultimately, make the leaves come back to their nice and rich green color. However, the plant started to show signs of deterioration as some of the leaves got infected with brown rot. I eliminated all infected leaves and sprayed the entire plant with H2O2. The infection stopped for a while. Soon after, I cutted all dead roots to lessen the suseptibility of the plant from getting infected. There are still few roots left but they don't look so well. While examining further, I touched and squeezed the uppermost leaves as I noticed some wrinkles forming at that area. To my surprise, it was leathery. I suspected that the plant is suffering dehydration as well. I'm wondering how it happened as I dunked it everyday with distilled water and some epsom salt. But I realized that the vanda lost quite a lot of roots (likely due to adaptation to its new environment) and the ones left doesn't look healthy to me. Combining it with deficiency, the plant is acting very ill. In addition, the plant starts to become infected again from brown rot. I do believe that the plant needs to have new roots as soon as possible because it will help the plant to revive from dehydration quickly and acquire energy to fight off the infection and deficiency. But how shall I do it? I stopped applying epsom salt for a while as the roots are getting burned from it. Soft water can probably promote root production so I'm spraying it often with rainwater (not dunking it as it can worsen the brown rot). What else should be done? My poor sanderiana needs help :(((