Stupid, stupid, stupid...

A forum friend traded a few plants with me last year. I received the Paph. Francisco Fierre (Ang-thong x suk) and potted it in semi hydro on 11/07. We go through a lot of yogurt and I've been recycling the containers to use for my plants. I don't know what happened, this is the first time I've done this, but I forgot to put in drain holes. I've been watering and fertilizing the same as my other orchids. Today I was walking through the g.h. and I happened to notice some of the leca floating and water up to the base of the plant. I couldn't believe it! It's been growing in water for 8 months! Not only did it not rot, but it's in spike! It's growing new roots and although I didn't dump it out, it looks like it's fine.:crazy: It's even got a new growth coming and the old growth is still hanging on. Oh, yeah I poked drain holes in it. I'm very surprised that it's so healthy. Bad Mama, bad, bad Mama!

big mistake...if it was happy, why change things...now it is going to dimp for you

I thought the same as Ron, haha! Sorry Candace...You were growing so well, girl!

It just broke it in fasteroke:oke:

Ignorance is bliss, Candace! If this was an experiment and you'd known that it was swimming like a water lily all this time, it would've rotted on you long ago!

It happens to all of us Candace! Good thing you caught it!


Ramon

I'm interested in seeing what all the water and fertilizer build up of 8 mos. will do to the bloom!

That plant is obviously suffering and you are an unfit orchid-mother. You should send it to me immediately. oke:

I'm suprised! Quite beautiful foliage also!

Isn't amazing how nature adapts?

Mistakes are for people!!!! Good thing everything turned out great!!!! Do not blame yourself at all!!!!! Keep walking...

Could it be that all the conventional wisdom is not necessarily correct?

I have a local friend who grows his award winning phals in sterilized peat moss (i.e. dirt) and keeps them sopping wet at all times. He has performed experiments, and says that root rot is caused by soil borne (not air borne) bacteria (or was it fungi? I forget which). His medium, sterilized in some sort of lab-type device (he is a scientist), is bacteria free and his phals never rot and grow like weeds. Furthermore, he grows them bunched in tightly together in plastic covered frames (like Wardian cases) , approximately 4'x4'x4', in his greenhouse. They have NO air movement at any time, stay sopping wet at close to 100% humidity. He's been doing this for years with great success. His only slippers are a flask of Phrag. Jason Fischer, now huge plants growing right there with the phals.

I'm not trying to promote his methods, I'm just saying that the conventional wisdom may not be entirely correct. Just something to think about.

Wow, tough paph !!.. a division of my Phrag schlimii did not survive the no hole method :sob:

Gilda, did you make a booboo too or was it an experiment?

Hardly a bad orchid mom if it is growing new roots and has a spike!

Hardly a bad orchid mom if it is growing new roots and has a spike!

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I agree, Dot... Candace, you must have really green fingers to have everything growing so nicely despite less than apprpriate conditions.. Can't wait to see the bloom...

Candace said:

Gilda, did you make a booboo too or was it an experiment?

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No experiment...a bad senior moment ...actually my hubby did it. I let him repot and take a division from my mother plant. He used a cup that didn't have holes and didn't find out till the plant died. Thankfully, the mother plant went back in the original pot !

That's pretty funny--what's the lesson here, more water and greenhouse conditions?! I should be drenching, and turning up the fans and humidifiers, not reading. (I'm kidding, kind of.) Nice leaves by the way--I love the silvery ones with the dark mottling (any mottling really).

Candace's swimming pools for paphs! oke:

Well Candace, you just reinvented Rod Venger's "Water Culture"!!!

I guess another way to think of it is that it was semi-hydroculture, but with a very deep reservoir!