Orchid Updates

This post is just to report back on how all my plants are doing.  Of course, some are doing better than others, and some plants just seem overall hardier than others.  Right now, my problem child is Rocky.  After attempting to remove an old yellowing leaf, an incoming fan right in the center of the plant, simply tore right off.  This was Rocky last week before his trim:

Judging by appearances, everything looks fine here

His foliage appeared full and green, but once I started to inspect the center of the plant to detach that left lower leaf, I discovered the center of the plant was black with rot.  To be honest, I was not entirely surprised.  After all, he was not in good shape when he was initially shipped to me.  I am trying my best to save him and he appears to be trying to grow, but those roots are still in horrible shape.  They are not any worse than when I received the plant so in a way, I do consider there has been some progress, but no new roots are growing at this time.  So, after my attempt to clean him up yesterday, this is what his foliage looks like now:

Upon closer inspection:

The important thing is that now air will get in between those leaves and heal much faster since the plant will remain drier.  Gathering from everything I had read, Paphiopedilum Spicerianum is a good grower.  It may be compact, but it has a rep for being easy to grow and quite prolific.

With all my Paphs, particularly the ones in distress, I have been feeding lightly, watering generously every couple of days since my conditions are quite dry, adding dolomite to the mix, and I have been using liquid kelp once a month to stimulate root growth.

My second most needy plant is my newest, Kalista.  She arrived quite bruised from being shipped.  She was also pretty dessicated and the leaves were mangled all together.  She also seems a bit discolored as if she had been exposed to way too much light.  Here is Kalista after almost a week of arriving in her new home:

She still needs a little more time, but she is recovering nicely.

In the opposite end of the spectrum, my success story has been my Paphiopedilum Oberhausen's Diamant, Marilyn.  She was fine until the middle of July or so when we had a bad heat wave and our family went away on vacation.  This, and the fact that I did not have a dedicated fan for the orchids, spelled heatstroke.  Out of all my orchids, she was the one that got it the worse.  Her foliage began drooping.  At first, I thought it was some type of fungal thing so I treated her with fungicide, which ended up burning her roots.  So, instead of helping, I ended up making maters worse.  She began to recuperate from the root abuse slowly, but was making steady progress.

Then, about 2 weeks ago, one of her leaves began yellowing and she began displaying numerous brown spots on the yellow leaf.  Again, my inexperienced instincts screamed out fungus or some type of rot, but a more experienced grower, recommended adding dolomite to the media for my Calcicolous Paphs.  The dolomite worked.  She is now doing much better.  You be the judge:

Before

After

And here is my collection; everyone doing much better!