| Well,
I'm going to take the resounding silence as a "no", and I guess I will have to fly this one alone. For anybody that is interested, I repotted this morning. Here are a couple of shots. The first shot is of the old potting material, the second is of the root condition. To my surprise the roots looked like they were in good condition. I didn't trim any because they all felt firm. Which leaves me even more baffled as to what I am doing wrong. So I did some research and I came across this on the American Orchid Society web site.
Odontoglossums
Odontoglossums and their intergeneric hybrids offer a great splash of color now. Though once thought of as being difficult to grow and requiring cool temperatures due to the emphasis on odontoglossum breeding, the new intergeneric hybrids made using Oncidium and Brassia, for example, are just the opposite. These plants are quite content in more intermediate conditions. New growths generally emerge in the spring, later forming beautiful plump pseudobulbs. Look for the flower spikes to emerge from the inner sheath of the pseudobulb. If your plant's pseudobulbs are shriveled, then the plants have been kept too dry or too wet. Inspect the roots to determine which condition prevailed. If the lead pseudobulb is large, plump and green (and back bulbs are shriveled) but no flower spike is evident, the plants may have been kept too dry.
So the medium I took out was staying wet and not drying out very fast so I thought it might have root problems. But after reading this, could it be that because I had poor drainage that I simply have not been watering enough? Does that make any sense?
Then there is the whole cool temperature thing that factors in. We leave our house open and just accept the temperature of the day. Right now our temp. is 25+humidity. It has been cooler the last couple of weeks with less humidity. Is this too hot for this orchid and the source of my problems? I do have sheared south facing window in my basement which is always a few degrees cooler, but has zero air circulation. Do I move the orchid down there and hope for the best?
Sorry if thi is long winded. It helps my thought process to write things down and then analyze it.
Steve |