Orchid problems

MBodd

Hi, my daughter bought me an orchid back in March and after the first lot of healthy flowers, I cut back the stem as instructed and watered once a week with a small amount of rain water and orchid feed.  The leaves now seem very floppy, though still green and the stem has turned white. Any advice please as I would love it to flower again?

Elusive

Any chance of a Photo? This would really help identify the problem

treehugger80

I would stop feeding it (it's not really the growing season now), orchids are tropical plants and like a soaking not a sprinkling of water, I would submerge it in a bucket of water for an hour and see if it perks up over the next couple of days.

MBodd

 

 Thanks for the advice, I've uploaded some photos. When I submerge it, do I just put enough water in the bucket to go up to the top of its plastic pot?

Bilje

I use a deep bowl, place pot in and fill with tepid water to rim of orchid pot, if it's deeper all the orchid compost will float out. When you look through the plastic pot what are the roots like. Healthy roots are almost pencil thick and white, dead roots appear brown. The roots I can see at the top of the pot look ok, 

the flower stem is now dead so cut it off, you perhaps initially cut it too far back. When it flowers again, fingers crossed, enjoy them then as the last flowers go over trim it to the nearest node, little bobble bulge, below the flowers. 

MBodd

Thanks Bilje, I'll try that

arneil

I never submerge mine , I water it sitting on the draining board and give it a few drinks over a few hours and make sure it doesn't sit in water , and I only do it once a fortnight at the most . It has repeatedly flowered since I rescued it from a discard pile at a big shed store

SFord

Hi MBodd - I have 10 orchids at home.  I have always found that when I trim the stalk once its flowered that it never reflowers from that stalk - mine too die back.  So now I just cut the stalk down once all the flowers have dropped off and give it a feed and water as usual.  Within a couple of weeks a new flower spike starts to grow.  Often the leaves go floppy too - not sure why, however they do keep putting out flower spikes and new leaves so they can't be unhappy! 

At the moment, I have 3 in full flower, 4 with flower spikes and 3 resting!

MBodd

Thanks SFord. How often do you feed and water them? How much water do you give them as I'm never too sure.  Hopefully mine will revive itself.  Some of the roots looking through the clear pot look rather soft and brown, is this a bad sign? I'm impressed by your orchids flowering 

SFord

I dont profess to be an expert in orchids by any stretch of the imagination,  I think I have just happened across situations which these orchids prefer light, warmth and care-wise.

I water mine once per week when they are flowering (which is most of the year), along with an orchid feed.  If not flowering, once every two weeks or so without feed.

I stand them in a tray of water for a couple of hours, take them out and leave them to drain before putting them back in pots.  I do occasionally use the orchid leaf spray but thats mainly to clean off any dust.

Once question I do have, if anyone can answer, when can I repot them into bigger pots?  Can I do it whilst they are actively flowering/sending up flower spikes?

MBodd, the roots should look plump and green, some may look dry and brown (in which case cut any of these off that you can get to), but they shoudnt look soft and brown - any ideas anyone?

 

treehugger80

there are a couple of good roots on the pictures, in the same way as the bottom leaves de off occasionally, the roots do the same. It should be fine.

best time to pot up is after its finished flowering, give it a couple of weeks to recover and then repot.

I have mine on coir and bark boards, that way I don't have to bother repotting