Petaluma is No Longer with Us!

Unfortunately, after I treated Petaluma and Marilyn with the Physan 20, Petaluma didn't quite bounce back.  Her roots became entirely dessicated and all kinds of ugly things started happening from leaves blistering with water to the leaf tips splitting down the middle and lastly, the white patches underneath the leaves.  I knew there was no saving her and I also knew at that point, she would most likely contaminate one of the other orchids so sadly, I had to get rid of her.

At first, I was tempted to try and save her, but once I saw the liquid coming out from the leaves, I knew that this was not a good sign.  At that point, I didn't want to make the problem worse by keeping a sick orchid that could potentially and quickly wipe out my small collection.

I will miss you, Petaluma!

Desperate Measures

I found out that the issues I had been having lately with Petaluma and Marilyn's droopy foliage and rotting roots were not so much as a result from watering problem, but an air circulation problem.  However, I do have to carefully monitor my generous watering habits.  With the torturous heat waves we've been having in the Northeast, the extremely high humidity, and some very stagnant air to boot; it was the perfect culture for roots to rot.  In desperation, I had ordered some Physan 20 fungicide and mixed up a gallon at 1 Tbs strength.  I took great care to disinfect all the tools I used, the media, and also soaked the plants for some time before and after trimming the roots.  I must say that the roots were in much better shape than last time, but there were some soft and mushy roots I had missed.  It was harder to tell with Marilyn since her roots are brown naturally, but I did manage to carefully get rid of all the dead tissue. 

Another thing I did for Marilyn was to purchase a smaller pot for her.  The 5 inch Aircone pot was simply way too big and it didn't matter how much styrofoam I used, it wasn't working out.  I got a 4" ceramic pot with nice large holes.  However, since the root mass is now substantially smaller, I repotted her in a plastic 3.5" nursery pot and made some holes in the pot before placing it inside of the decorative pot.  I also placed a layer of styrofoam peanuts at the bottom of the pot for better drainage.

For Petaluma, I placed a good 2" styrofoam layer at the bottom of the carousel pot, and made sure I avoided packing the media too tightly.  I left it nice and airy inside and made sure the roots were in between the bark mix and the styrofoam to avoid any further issues with the center of the media remaining wet while the top layer is totally dry.

I then placed each plant, after the treatment and repotting, in front of the living room tower fan.  I also made sure the media for each orchid was soaked in the Physan 20 for a good half hour or so, but at a more diluted mixed solution.  But, because the only tower fan I had is a full size one, I could not place it close to the orchids permanently without it always being in someone's path.  I decided to purchase a small tower fan.  I scoured the Internet and found a few I could choose from at my local Target...so off I went!

 After comparing a few models and even checking out the selection at the big chain electronic's store downstairs, I opted for the Holmes Mini Tower Fan with Built in Fresh Air Ionizer.  Although it was a bit more expensive than what I was looking to spend, this particular fan had a few things going for it.  The first thing was that it was compact, quiet, and aesthetically pleasing.  After all, it was going to be placed on an end table in the living room.  I wanted an oscillating fan with various speeds and preferably a timer.  The last feature I considered was that I wanted a fan with some type of protective narrowly slitted grill.  I don't want the cats to injure a paw while attempting to play with an exposed rotating blade.  This little fan has it all and a 3 year warranty.  It is absolutely perfect for what I need it to do.

So now, it is home and here is a picture of my now much happier orchids enjoying their new fan:

Ack! Almost Killed Petaluma

I had been noticing that her roots were looking a little funky; off-colored and some black spots.  Also, a few of the new buds had blasted.  Today, I decided to pour out the media and take a good look to see if anything was going on.  I almost fell over when I saw the condition of her roots and it was all my fault.  When I first brought Petaluma  home, her roots were nothing short of gorgeous.  So, whatever has happened since then has been entirely up to me.

I am glad I decided to take a proactive approach and take a close look inside her pot.  I had to trim off about half of her roots to remove all the bad roots and rot.  After I finished trimming off the stuff that needed to go, I put her back in the pot, but made sure the media was nice and loose so that air would be able to circulate better between the roots.  The clumps of media which I found were oversaturated, I threw directly in the garbage.

I then placed her in front of the tower fan for the rest of the day so that media could dry out some more.  Since I did not realize what was going on before I actually emptied the pot, I watered it this morning, which I now realize was the worse thing I could possibly do.

I hope I caught the problem in time and from now on, I will start waiting until those roots are a silvery color or white before I add even a drop of water to the media.  This is something I must confess I was ignoring before and was simply judging whether she needed water or not by sticking my finger inside the media.  Obviously, that is not a method that works for me.  I might start trying the toothpick method (where you insert a wooden toothpick into the media and it should come out completely clean and not be cool to the touch at all).  From my readings I know that has worked for  a lot of people.

Odd thing is the plant looks so healthy atop the soil.  The leaves are a beautiful green and firm, the flowers are blooming.  If you look through the side of pot, you could see some of the roots and they were green and plump.  If it had not been for the couple of new buds blasting, I never would've noticed there was a problem until the plant probably died.  I am just hoping that Petaluma bounces back and starts to grow new healthy roots.

I am just very disappointed.  I was trying so hard to care for her and I ended up almost loving her to the death!

Repotting Petaluma

As usual, Petaluma came in a clear plastic pot packed tightly in Sphagnum Moss.  Upon outward inspection, the roots looked great, and since I did not have a pot at home that was adequate, I chose to wait and get a good one.  In the meantime, I did cut numerous slits into the existing pot for extra aeration and removed some of the moss from the top.

Petaluma

For Audrey, I was forced to shop locally and found a pot that was a bit too big for her.  I rigged the pot as described in my previous post Repotting a Blooming Orchid.  Since Audrey is a mini Phal, I was really nervous that the pot would simply be too large for her despite my best efforts.  Now, a few weeks later, she's doing just fine, but I didn't want to push my luck again.  I think I just got lucky, and she is a little trooper!


Carousel Pot
I must say that Repotme.com is excellent as far as customer service.  I ordered my supplies on Saturday, and had them delivered on Tuesday.  I will definitely be ordering from them again based on how quickly they deliver.  They even threw in a couple of freebies in the parcel, which was very nice.  I am definitely impressed! Last year, I ordered supplies from numerous pet supplies vendors; some being big chain stores, and other local mom and pop establishments, and no one was as fast as Repotme.com without charging an exorbitant shipping fee.

So this is the new pot.  Very pretty!

You really can't appreciate the bubbling pattern within each of the slits

You can see the bubbling in this picture of one of the pink pots.


The Repotting Process
I wanted to seize the opportunity to try something a bit different, and decided to go with a more traditional approach.  Petaluma is a standard size Phalaeonopsis so the root system is much larger and fits nicely in a 5 inch pot.  There will be no more worries about the media not drying up fast enough or not draining well.  I am also very excited to try the new clear Orchitop Carousel Pot I ordered.  I also plan to start fertilizing 'weakly weekly' (a consistent watered down weekly regimen and a monthly over-saturation of the media in the pot to remove any salts that have accumulated). 

Having learned from my previous mistakes with Audrey, I went ahead and soaked the bark mix overnight eventhough the packaging does not specifically indicate this to be necessary:

I just find that the bark mix I have been using in the office, which wasn't pre-soaked, dries up way too quickly, and it's been a couple of weeks since potting the plant. While in the office environment, during the week, this is not a huge issue, but during the weekends, when I am not around to water Audrey if she were to dry out too much, it's a real concern.  There have been a few instances I have returned to the office after the weekend, and found that her leaves were a bit wrinkly.  Luckily, they plump right up after watering her generously.  At home, this would be easier to manage, but I want to get into the habit of doing things the tried and true way instead of having to stumble about.

I was lucky that Petaluma really does have gorgeous roots:

This makes it easier to keep her healthy rather than trying to bring her back to health, and makes the whole repotting process a lot easier.  There was minimal trimming of a few dried out ends, but all the other roots were salvageable.

After I carefully placed the roots in the pot and packed in the bark mix into the pot, I staked the spikes, but they kept overlapping each other so I used the strawberry cookie cutter my youngest daughter gave me to keep the spikes separated:

Actually, the cookie cutter was a trade; I traded her for the complimentary pink butterfly stake clip I received from Repotme.com.  And here is the final product from the front:

And from the side:

Ta-da!!!

I am TOTALLY Cheating on Audrey!

So, lately I have been seriously thinking about getting another orchid, but talked myself out of it.  So many reasons why not; the cats, the lighting at home, our past history with plants, and the list goes on.  But, I have been doing well with Audrey so I began feeling that maybe it wasn't such a horrible idea after all.

This passed Friday, a friend at work coincidentally wanted to go to a Martial Arts supplier, and of all places, it was 2 blocks away from the Plant District, and to add insult to injury, we had to walk along all the plant shops in order to get to our intended destination.  As you may have guessed already, the temptation was too great.  However, I did promise myself that unless I found exactly what I was looking for, I would not buy anything.  I had been eye-ing a Phal Fortune Saltzman (a.k.a. Maple Bridge) online:

As long as I was only cyber window shopping, it was ok.  I would lurk the orchid sites without consequence, but in real life, that is another story.  I really didn't think I was going to find anything even remotely similar, but after going into several shops and not seeing anything that caught my eye, I found a noID Green Phalaenopsis with very similar coloring.  I cannot certify its genetic makeup, but it looks pretty much the same, and that is good enough for me.  World, meet Petaluma, the newest member of our household:

At the shop, I took my time; I inspected roots, leaves, and looked for plants which still had unopened blooms, hence why I selected this particular one:

and a look at the leaves:

I must admit that I found the foliage a bit darker than I would like.  However, she was all the way in the back at the plant store and was most definitely not receiving as much sunlight as the ones closer to the front of the display.  This would also explain why a couple of the flowers were facing in the opposite direction, but a change in environment should remedy that.

I ordered a Orchitop Carousel pot from Repotme.com.  Yes, it was a bit pricey, but since I am not growing massive amounts of plants, it's not so taxing on the wallet.  I also ordered some Feed Me! MSU Orchid Fertilizer to start a fertilizing regimen for both Audrey and Petaluma.