i recently bought a young cymbidium orchid. i checked it yesterday,and it has turned a browny colour at the base of the leaves and on the bulbs. is my orchid dying? what can i do ?
If it is soft then toss it as it has rot and it is gone. If it is not soft then unpot it and look at the roots. Are they nice and firm and not mushy. If firm and look good then repot. If mushy then clean off all the dead and rotting stuff. repot into straight bark and sit on a humidity tray and spray the plant with a foggy type of mist, not a heavy mist. The plant can recover if the rot has not gotten into the pseudobulb. If it has then it is easier to dump it and get a new plant. What caused this? Too cold and it got rained on while it had a new growth???
it hasn't being to cold, its summer over here, but the weather has being very strange. Could the changing of one wether extreme to another have done this? my other orchids i got at the same time are all ok.
iT IS GONE! Dont feel bad. I have one that had came down with rot. Got too cold and got water in its growth. Also the plant was weak to begin with.I cut the bad bulb in half and left in full sun to dry in the hope that the air and light would help it survive. But dont know if it will or not. Not really alot that can be done when they get to the stage yours is at. Dont waste any time with it and dump everything except the pot. Wash that with soap and water.
The first thing to do is to inspect all your orchids now. Look closely at the pseudobulbs top to bottom to see how they look. Look for plumpness, any kind of discoloration. Check out the roots. Are they nice and white looking healthy? Any rotting roots? The most important thing to remember when it comes to rot is that it is the result of poor culture. What happens is that this is a bacterial infection. Not necessarily bad bacteria either. Bacteria occurs in the soil. For cymbidiums when the soil mix starts to breakdown and if not repotted in a timely fashion will cause the roots to die of suffocation. As they die if the media is kept watered they become mushy and bacteria prosper. This provides the way into the plant. The number one thing to do is to set up a regular routine of repotting your cymbidiums (all your orchids in pots) every other year irregardless. Some will go three years. Everything depends on the kind of mix you use, the kind of pot you use. Currently I am using DVD/CD storage cases I found at WalMart for a buck apiece to plant my cymbidiums into using just landscape bark, shredded redwood. I figure with the nice round holes in the sides and bottom of the DVD/CD cases any decomposing bark will simply wash out! This would forstall any repotting for quite some time. Maybe to 5 years as the cases would end up with just root masses. At least this is my presumption. Again. Culture is everything. Be observant check your plants and practice good growing methods.
