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palmbeachlys

Phalaenopsis question

PalmBeachLys
10 years ago

Hello All,

This is my first post, and I am a newbie orchid owner. I have looked all over online to figure out exactly what's going in with my 3 phal plants, but the information is rather general, and I hoped a few of you could give your opinions... I live in south Florida, and about mid October I purchased 3 phal plants, very much in bloom, to use some of the flowers in the centerpieces for my wedding. We took most of the flowers from just one or two of the plants (they were clipped above the nodes(?), so just the flowers were taken, no stems). They have always been outside, out of direct sunlight, and the weather here has been low to mid eighties during the day and usually warmer than the low seventies at night. Last weekend, we decided to repot. I know that these plants like indirect sunlight and good air circulation. The planters we got are made of wooden bars (think Lincoln logs) with half inch gaps between the bars on all sides. I put moss on the bottom to prevent my phal orchid mix (comprised of bark and pebbles and such) from falling out. I was very careful when removing the old moss - they were packed very tightly and had what I considered to be a lot of root rot. I trimmed the really bad roots, and in the cases where the outside sheath was brown and mushy - I removed that, but kept the thin root inside intact as I read that that would help the plant stabilize in the new medium. While the plants were out of the pots, I misted generously, and after a short while, repotted as mentioned above. I did mist the plants again (containing diluted-as-directed orchid food) once they were repotted. Now, less than a week later, we have lost many of the blooms. I do have two new buds on one of the plants, but on that plant and one other, the leaves are showing patches of wrinkled yellow. The plants are still outside, out of direct sunlight (probably 5-6 feet away), and the potting medium is pretty dry. The roots that come out of the soil look pretty good - they have a greenish tint to them. So... What do we think? Too far out of sunlight? Root structure not stabilized enough yet? I know they prefer to be dry than wet, so I don't want to keep watering.. And I don't want to 'force' them to keep blooming if they don't want to, but I'm kind of fond of the little buggers and I would like to keep them alive. Any thoughts of advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

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