FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Well, I've been wanting to try an orchid for quite a while now, but I've always been put off by people saying they're so difficult (and usually by the price tag too). I found one on the sale rack at Lowe's yesterday for only $5 so I just couldn't resist. When I got it home and unwrapped the big plastic funnel, I found the pot it's in doesn't have any drainage holes at ALL. The leaves look pretty healthy to me, and the flowers are obviously just about finished now, but the LFSM around the roots feels extremely wet and mushy, as if it's rotting from staying too wet.
After reading about the care requirements online, I realized it's very similar to my Nepenthes, so I wanted to repot it as soon as possible. I already have some Better-Gro brand orchid moss on hand that I use for my flytraps, and a bag of orchid bark mix I use for my other epiphytes which contains big chunks of bark, perlite and charcoal.

So should I drill holes in the bottom of this pot, or use a different pot? Should I use *all* LFSM like it's in now, or mix in some of the bark stuff too, or use *all* bark mix? After repotting it, I was going to put it outside on my deck in the shade beside my Nepenthes. Any tips or advice would be greatly appreciated though since I've never done this before!

A pot bigger than that with lots of drainage would be best.

Different growers use different moss/bark ratios. It depends on how often you'll water. Pure sphagnum runs a high risk of root rot, but will keep the plant healthy if you can't water as often. A mix of sphagnum and bark is best, as the bark provides aeration, and the ideal is more bark than sphagnum. Roughly two handfuls bark mix to one handful sphagnum ought to be about right.

Be sure to trim off all the dead roots when you repot. Definitely repot as soon as possible, before the rot sets in. Healthy roots are firm, round, and white, or firm and green if they're moist.

Moth orchids should be watered the day before the substrate dries out. It takes a bit of experimenting to figure out exactly when that is, but the ideal would be to water a couple times a week. A daily misting is also good.

You'll want to put it in full shade at first so as not to shock it, but moth orchids are, in fact, very similar in care to a lot of Nepenthes. The main difference is that moth orchids need fertilizer, and they shouldn't be watered with distilled water too frequently because they do need trace minerals.

I prefer not to repot while it's flowering (unless it's some kind of emergency) as it adds a lot of stress. I'd wait if I could.

In the meantime, are you sure that the bottom of the pot doesn't pull off at the groove? Also, the plants like yours that are sold around here have a similar looking pot but when you look carefully, there's a soft, thin, clear inner pot that can be removed.

If you do decide to wait a bit, you can pull out a lot of the mushy LFS with a tweezers, allowing the roots more air until the repot.

My biggest tip is to just not water the leaves/ let water stand in the leaves... I think many people kill theirs off this way. I have mine hanging upside down so it doesn't really matter how I water them, since the water will just slide off anyways It does take some experimenting to see how often you gotta water them, it all depends on your environment, and media that you use.

I just mounted all my orchids and wrapped sphagnum moss around the roots, because of this, I have to water mine more often than someone who has them potted since mounts dry out faster, even though I'm in Monterey, CA and the weather is nice.

Thanks for all the advice! For some reason I'm not getting emails even though I made sure I *am* subscribed to this thread, so I didn't know anyone had replied until I came back here and looked for myself.

I just took some more pictures. Here's a closeup of the top of the pot that shows what the roots look like.
It's that black mushy stuff on the left side that has me concerned. Would that be considered an emergency? I'd much rather lose a few flowers which are already on their way out by repotting too early than losing the whole entire plant to mold. I assume the green roots are okay, that they just turn green when exposed to light, right? I was tempted to pull it out of the pot to see what all the rest of the roots look like, but I didn't want to risk doing that while I don't have another pot or soil ready to use yet. I was afraid it might expand and I wouldn't be able to get it back down inside this pot.

Here's a picture of the bottom of the pot.
Those round black things are rubber feet. There are no drainage holes at all anywhere. And that ring near the bottom is just a strip of light purple paint inside a very shallow groove. It's all one single piece, from top to bottom. From what I've read online about how important drainage is for orchids, I can't believe they would even sell them potted in something like this. But then again, it did come from Lowe's so I guess this is simply equivalent to the "death cubes" they always sell their CP's in.

Oh, one other question... I saw something online about how you're not supposed to cut the whole entire bloom stalk off after it's finished flowering. Something about how the next bloom stalk will arise from the old one? Is that true? So how do you know how much to cut off? The top part of mine is already solid black. Will it turn black all the way down after the rest of the flowers have dropped?

Thanks again for all the advice in what is such uncharted territory for me! And I don't think I'll try hanging it upside down, Wiki, until I can get the hang of everything else first!

I would repot it to be honest, especially since the flowers are almost done anyways. (I mounted mine when they were in full bloom and they retained all their flowers for about a month, and then they even threw out more flower stalks)

If you wait long enough, you can see a little growth point forming at one of the nodes on the flower stalk, you can just cut it off right before that node and it'll reflower from there.

Here's an example of the growth that I mean, you can see that one of them already grew and flowered from right above where I cut the stalk.

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Thanks, Wiki. I guess I'm just being paranoid because so many people have told me that orchids are so difficult to grow. My sister is a really good gardener too and so far she's managed to kill two or three of them! I just want to make sure I'm doing the right thing to start with and not have to learn by trial and error.

They're honestly not that difficult, but you can't treat them like regular plants.

Moths are pretty good about being repotted, and you'll want to get it out of that pot ASAP, some of the roots are probably rotting already.

Thanks again, everyone! I didn't think I'd have time to get to it this evening, but I did get it repotted. I was surprised that *all* of the roots were bright green, just like the ones on the surface. I thought that was just from exposure to light. I didn't get to take any pictures of that because it was getting dark and my hands were too dirty to use the camera. I did have to trim away quite a few of the roots, but it still had plenty left. The black mushy stuff smelled pretty bad as I was pulling it out, so I rinsed the roots off to make sure I got all the rotten gunk off.

I replanted it in half LFSM and half bark mix. There was a big hollow space up in the middle of the root ball that had been stuffed full of the old mushy LFSM so I removed all of that and replaced with it with the new mix before putting it down in the new pot and filling in around the edges. Then I drenched it really well and let it drain out on the deck before bringing it back inside and putting on the kitchen windowsill with all the other cuttings I have going there.
I'll leave it there for a few days or a week before finding a shady spot out on the deck for it for the rest of the summer. That window only gets a little morning sun and then dappled shade the rest of the day.

One thing I'm still a little confused on... You say I'm not supposed to get water on the leaves, but everywhere I read about them, it says you should mist them. How do you do that without getting the leaves wet? And what about when it rains? Surely it does that most days in the jungle where they grow in the wild, right?

I've never heard of not allowing water to get on the leaves. I leave mine out in the open (it's mounted on my wax apple tree with my neps) and it rains hard here and it does absolutely fine. 1 thing I did though is mount it upside down, to lower chances of crown rot.

Also, I don't think they like to sit in water. The only orchids I would leave sitting in water are bulbophyllums.

The roots were all green because they were all damp. Orchid roots turn silver-green when they dry out.

Just try not to let water sit in the spot where the leaves join together, that can cause crown rot. These plants grow hanging sideways and upside-down in the wild, so they don't ever have water sit in those spots. Water just on the flats of the leaves won't hurt them, though, and the amount of water that comes from misting won't be a concern.

Wikiwakawakawee wrote:My biggest tip is to just not water the leaves/ let water stand in the leaves... I think many people kill theirs off this way.

I came here to say the same thing. Especially don't ever get water in the crown. It's a death sentence. Also, unlike a flytrap, the media can dry out between waterings.

I think phalaenopsis have a reputation for being difficult because when you bring them home from the store, they frequently already have a lot of root rot. Keeping them wet while they're on sale ensures they don't drop their flowers, but also rots their roots which are jam-packed in with sphagnum moss. I usually don't worry about the flowers and repot into orchid mix as soon as I bring them home, trimming off all the rot in the process.

Thanks again, everyone. Now I can understand why so many people say orchids are so hard to grow. If you didn't know that about the dangers of getting water in the crown (I'd never heard that before), I guess that's about the same as not knowing that tap water will kill flytraps. Seems like every plant has at least one secret to success, and if you don't know it, there's no way you can possibly keep it alive.

So, now that I *do* know... Do you think it would be better for a beginner like me to keep my orchid indoors so I can control where the water goes? If I put it out on the deck, I could keep it up against the house, under the eaves, where rain wouldn't fall directly down on it, but if the wind blows, like during a thunderstorm, it could still go down in the crown. I just want to be sure I get the hang of this before trying to grow anything upside down. (Never heard that before, about *any* kind of plant!)

Leo756 wrote:Seems like every plant has at least one secret to success, and if you don't know it, there's no way you can possibly keep it alive.

This is why I always try to check out how a plant grows in its natural habitat.

On that note, if you look at phals, you'll see what you're calling upside down is actually right side up...well nearly. They tend to grow hanging sideways off of a tree which I guess keeps them drained out enough. I wouldn't leave it outside where water could blow in the crown. It's crazy how sensitive they are to getting water in there. They don't need a lot of light so indoors should be fine. When they're flowering you can put them pretty much anywhere indoors. When they're not flowering, they do like a lot of light and will grow faster with more light, but can do ok in lower light too.