| I repotted my oldest phal (3 years) in a bark mix in my office environment a month or so ago. It is the only phal I still had in bark. It also sulked major. The leaves turned droopy and the oldest one started to barely yellow, even though I thought it had already lost the two oldest leaves to age (for the year) a few months earlier. Since it had been doing OK in bark for a few years I thought I should just go ahead and leave it there even though I had all my other phals in a mix of coir, perlite and a little charcoal. After about 2-3 weeks of major sulking I felt sorry for it and decided that something must be done! I put it into the same mix as my other phals and now it has firmed up like you cannot believe. Boing! It is like it is a new plant with hard plastic leaves instead of rubber. I think it needed more moisture not less. For whatever reason it appears it was not getting the moisture that it needed in/from the new bark media. The bottom line is, until I find a reason to change I'm stickin' with coir, perlite and charcoal.
Note: this still doesn't explain how I managed to kill my coworkers plant in nothing flat with the exact same media and environment as all my other phals that are doing wonderfully.  |