Bud Blast on a Phal Orchid

[yevreeva]

I had a phal orchid for about 1,5 yrs now, and I bought it originally in full bloom. After a while flowers fell off and I assume the orchid went into some kind of rest period. Then I decided to pay more attention to it as I wanted to make my orchid bloom. I watered it when I suppose to (no ice cubes but under a "shower" of tap water not targeted at leaves or roots but the mass). I also bought some spray bottle to "feed" my orchid and followed the instructions.

Finally, I thought my worked had payed off, I started to see new roots and a sign of a bloom at the top of the stem! Moreover, I got two new leaves that pop-ed out in a span of few months.

The issue is that the expected bloom never happened. It is hard to describe, so please see the pictures I provided. The orchid was stuck in this position for over 6 month now. Unfortunately, I recently moved and during the move my orchid fell a few times Not biggy, I guess as I did not see any immediate damage. So after a month at the new place two bottom old leaves turned yellow suddenly and fell off. There were some black spots were under where the yellow leaves were...and then one of the expected bud's surrounding leaves started to dry...

I decided to pull the orchid from the moss, cut out old roots and what I got is on the picture.

I am sorry for the long story, but my questions are:

• What should I do with the bud/bloom stem that never happened?
• Should I do anything else to the roots before I re-pot it in a bark? The very bottom of the orchid (where roots are growing from seems kind of dark)

Thank you for any advice in advance.

[Carolla]

At this point, I would cut off the bloom shoot, you don't have enough plant left to support it and the new growth you need. Speaking of dark/black stuff under the leaves sounds like it got too wet and rot or fungus started up. It looks clean at the moment, so give it new media in a smallish pot and let it rest again. It can be hard to get the culture down right, but once you figure it out, your plant should do well.

It's possible that your new place is moister or has less air movement and what was the right amount of water at the old one was too much at the new. It's also possible your media was old and breaking down and damaging roots. The good news is that you have roots, but you need more of them. You said you got it 1.5 years ago, depending on circumstances (I'm going to have to guess of course) that might be long enough to need repotting, esp. if the media is fine rather than coarse. You mention using a spray bottle to feed your plant - orchids don't take foliar feeding particularly and should be fed in their normal water with a very dilute fertilizer.

As for repotting - if you use too large a pot, it won't dry evenly or quickly and could stay wet in the middle and rot your remaining leaves. Use a pot small enough to crowd your roots a bit and go easy on the water. Keep it warm, Phals like warm roots and good air to the roots. You should be able to bring it around pretty easily.

So sorry it didn't bloom for you, but at least it tried! It's going to need 4 - 5 leaves before its ready to bloom again, but once you get the hang of it, it should bloom most years for you.

[kspalding]

What Carol said