Darwinian orchid care

      Even as my updates have gotten fewer, I've also been finding less and less time for watering my collection.  Where before I was spending nearly an hour on my orchids every day, now I water everything in one quick go every few days as I remember.  Sometimes 'a few days' means almost a week goes by.

     With this kind of neglectful care, my collection is undergoing a rather harsh natural selection process.  Some orchids seem perfectly fine for now under this regimen of care.  Others, particularly orchids which were in weak health to begin with, have visibly suffered.

     My collection is now reduced by two.  I lost Dtps. Yu Pin Burgundy almost a month ago.  This was the orchid which rapidly lost all its roots due to what I think was excessive cold during the winter.  The phal continued to shed leaves, until nothing remained of the orchid.  RIP.

Infected orchid

     I also threw away my hapless Aliceara Matthias 'Glamour'.  This orchid has been trouble ever since I first bought it.  I had noticed a white fuzz on it a while ago, and recently it appeared to have spread.  I am not too versed in orchid pests, but I'm guessing this is 'scale'.  Regardless, I had the orchid isolated from the rest of my collection for a while.  Today, in a moment of frustration, I just threw it in the trash.  I'd rather have one less young, sick plant to take care of, than risk the rest of my orchids for the chance to see this one flower.

New growth on Aliceara Matthias 'Glamour'

Aliceara Matthias 'Glamour'

     There is a new growth on my oncidium intergenic, Aliceara Matthias.  The growth is a couple inches tall and growing strong. It has also put out a cluster of new roots, making me very hopeful that this orchid will soon recover and begin to thrive.

New oncidium growth sends out roots

The growth has a cool pinecone-like shape to it.

Repotting Aliceara Matthias 'Glamour'

Aerial roots on Aliceara Matthias 'Glamour'

     I repotted my Aliceara Matthias 'Glamour' yesterday, from it's original 3"  pot to a 4.5" clear plastic pot.  I did not do this because the orchid was ready for a repotting, but because I was worried that its only visible growing roots were sticking straight up into the air, with no way to reach into the media.

New roots on Aliceara Matthias 'Glamour'

     Turns out, I needn't have worried too much.  When I removed the orchid from its pot, I found many new root tips working their way through the media.  This is a great improvement from early December, when all the orchid's old roots seemed to be dying off. Best of all, the new roots all look very healthy!  The tips are a bright green, and the roots are smooth, with a solid white color, and no black markings or other signs of rot.

An up-potted Aliceara Matthias 'Glamour'

     I ended up going through with the repotting anyway, because I did not like how much the youngest pseudobulb would stick out from the smaller pot.  Hopefully this wasn't a mistake. Instead of doing a full repot, I up-potted the plant (I did not remove the old media from the root mass, or do anything to disturb the roots).

     To help mitigate the potential overpotting problem, I only filled the new pot 3/4 of the way.  Instead, I tried to take advantage of the wider circumference to angle the newest growth such that the roots coming out from it could reach into the media.  Additionally, I filled the bottom half of the pot with coarse bark pieces  and sprinkled the finer oncidium media on top of that.  The idea is to have the media be very loosely packed, so that it can get plenty of air circulation and still dry out quickly.

Aliceara Matthias 'Glamour' shedding leaves

Yellowing leaves on Aliceara Matthias

     My Aliceara Matthias did not arrive to me in great condition, and has only worsened since then.  Between the lackluster health of this orchid, and the Den Burana Sundae, which I also ordered from them, I am quite disappointed with this vendor.  I will not be ordering from them again. 

     The Aliceara Matthias had only a few roots, which had some breaks in them, possibly from being shipped bare root.  Those few roots died off fairly soon after I potted the plant, and the orchid has yet to produce new root growth.  The orchid is likely shedding leaves now because it no longer has the root system necessary to support them.  I cut off the yellowing roots, partly because they took up valuable space in the terrarium, and partly because I didn't want decaying plant matter around to encourage bacterial and fungal growth.

Aliceara Matthias 'Glamour' after trimming dead leaves

     The orchid still looks nice with its remaining leaves, and my Oncostele Pacific Perspective has recovered from a worse state.  However, I am annoyed that instead of a healthy thriving orchid, I received another rescue case.

New orchid: Aliceara Matthias 'Glamour'

Aliceara Matthias 'Glamour'

     After my root health troubles with my existing two oncidium orchids, I wanted to buy a healthy one.  This is Aliceara Matthias 'Glamour', a red intergenic oncidium.  (A link to flowers photo)

Aliceara roots

     As far as health goes, this orchid is not much better off than my oncostele.  All the old roots on the left side of the picture are dead, although the new roots on the right are alive.  As a precaution, I soaked the orchid in fungicide before potting in the 3" slotted plastic pot seen in the picture at the top.

     The orchid has 4 mature pseudobulbs (3" tall) and one new growth.  The leaves are up to 14" long.  The orchid arrived looking fairly limp, but that's probably because it was shipped bare root.  The pseudobulbs are fairly plump, so this orchid should have plenty of reserve to adjust to my care.