Orchid plans

[cimorene]

Well, the upshot of my orchid research is that I'm quite sure my work orchid wants a new pot one size bigger. These pots typically cost between 70 cents and 2 euros, but nobody has them nearby, so ordering one to work would mean paying three times or more its cost in shipping. My boss would... maybe, probably? Go along with this if she were convinced it was necessary, only I'm not confident she would be convinced that I know what I'm talking about. Apart from the whole board's tendency to minimize my knowledge and expertise randomly, people their age like my parents and aunts and uncles often have trouble with the idea of getting reliable information from the internet.

We are gonna buy an orchid Wednesday though, and after that order some orchid supplies and I can just give the extra pot to the work orchid. I don't mind donating that much. Meanwhile I've gotta do something else at work for three days...

Comments

[princessofgeeks]

You are very kind to care about the work orchid.

[cimorene]

Well, I've bonded with the work plants now! I talk to them when I water them, because studies show that's good for plants, even if I have no idea how it can work, and it's been fifty-something weeks of that now.

[which_chick]

I wish I knew more about orchids. I got one (free) from my friend (non-plant person) when she was rehoming the plants her mother had owned. It has made two whole new leaves since I got it, so I guess that's good? The new leaves look great. But it's not... upright -- it kind of drapes down out of the pot. That seems weird. Maybe I'll try some google...

[cimorene]

It's likely a phalaenopsis orchid, and the main body is usually kinda sideways. They're evolved to cling to trees in the air, so they won't ever grow straight up. They choose which direction to bend based on where the light is hitting them, so it is possible to position them or grow lamps shining on them to somewhat effect which direction the flower stalks grow. You can also get stakes and clips to hold the flower stalks. But the orchid doesn't feel badly about being sideways. The main thing, though, is watering them enough but not too much, which it sounds like you have done fine with!

However, if the leaves are really floppy, limp, even wrinkly, that's a sign of dehydration.

If your orchid is a phalaenopsis - you can do an image search and compare it to pics of you don't know - then it might want to be repotted, possibly. They are typically potted in bark chips, which are a good potting medium that lets air circulate around the roots and helps prevent standing water and hence bacterial or algal growth; but they have a lifespan of about two years, after which they need to be swapped for new potting medium. They start to break down after that and can cause root rot, which seems to be upsetting my work orchid currently. That can lead to symptoms of dehydration even when the orchid is being watered on the same schedule, because the roots in the pot can have a diminished capacity to drink. And that can lead them to look a bit like they're trying to explode sideways out of the pot, with more aerial roots sticking out in all directions (but orchid roots do grow into the air and every direction all the time, this is just an increase). If your orchid's potting medium isn't degraded, or isn't old, or is inorganic like small stones or whatever, then that probably isn't a concern though.

[which_chick]

Thanks! I googled some pictures and it looks phalaenopsis-like (but is not in bloom so I'm just guessing based on leaves.). It does not seem to be in any particular distress -- the leaves are shiny, middling green, and hold their shape. It's not a floppy plant, except for the sideways thing. I've had it since March.

[cimorene]

In that case it sounds like your orchid is pretty happy and you are doing fine! If you're interested in trying to get it to bloom you could try orchid food, if you haven't given it any before, but from what I've read it's possible to over fertilize fairly easily. There are orchid fertilizers that claim to promote blooms based on the quantities of minerals included, and ones that are intended to stimulate root and leaf growth, and ones that are fairly balanced between the two goals. But it's probably not necessary when it looks healthy.

[which_chick]

I took some time last week to really look at the orchid and its potting medium which was... sphagnum moss? YouTube says no bueno even though that's how they frequently come from the store, but there were also several helpful videos about repotting and stuff, so I bought some orchid potting mix (Not dirt. It's like barky lumps. Not at all dirt.) and a better-looking pot for orchids (As well as being more attractive and a better color than the old pot, it also has many holes in it. I put an onion bag, one of the net ones? inside the pot to keep the barky lumps from dribbling out.) and I carefully unpotted the orchid (which was actually growing IN A TINY PLASTIC CUP INSIDE THE BIGGER POT WTF) and gently peeled away the sphagnum from the roots and spread out the (surprisingly decent-looking) fleshy grey-green root things and rearranged the whole shebang in the new pot with the barky lumps of not-dirt as per YouTube. And so we'll see how that goes. I will keep you posted as to my orchid adventures. (I also repotted my peace lily and my christmas cactus as it'd been... more than ten years for both of them and while I was making a mess, I figured why not. They did not get weird orchid potting mix, though, because they are not orchids.)

[cimorene]

That's interesting, two plastic pots?! All three Phalaenopsis that I've repotted had a sort of tiny sponge of some sort of moss or possibly coco fiber?? In the middle like a little pellet and then a mixture made of bark chips around it. This latest orchid, the oncidium, had densely packed sphagnum around the middle and a powdery soft fiber (coconut???) around it. And all had root rot in the center, probably as a result. 😑 The orchid potting mix I bought locally is also mainly bark, with some bits of sphagnum moss. Both seem to be popular.

I watched a video yesterday where Miss Orchid Girl used all sphagnum for some oncidiums, though. They have higher water requirements. But it might be used to compensate for a drier environment too.

[which_chick]

It had one small (and I mean small, maybe 5 cm diameter, 8 cm tall) plastic pot inside of a larger (probably decorative) ceramic pot WITH NO HOLES IN IT. The small plastic pot was jammed full of sphagnum moss and roots, the larger ceramic pot had ordinary potting soil that was there probably to bring the small plastic pot to the right height to sit in the bigger ceramic pot.

Anyway, I somehow managed to not drown it over the last five months despite this rather distressing arrangement and now it is in a hopefully better situation with MUCH better drainage. I was honestly kind of shocked to see mostly nice fat healthy root things and not stringy weird bits of rotted and unhappy roots like the "bad example of orchid roots" in the video. (They had "good" and "bad" examples, I guess to show people what to look for.)

[cimorene]

Yeah, that was my experience with the work orchid I repotted the other day! Pleasantly surprised!

I've put some river pebbles in the trays under the phalaenopsis for now, to keep them from standing in the water that drains out. We haven't tackled decorative pots yet, but they might get topheavy otherwise.