[Dalton21]

I just got into plants a couple of years ago and have picked it up suprisingly well seeing as how my mother has a black thumb. I just did trial and error with plants that I liked and it turned out all right and I can now get a variety of plants to flourish. I was in wal-mart and saw an orchid plant. It had a picture of what the plant was supposed to look like when in bloom and it was really pretty. I have never tried orchids before, but thought that it looked to pretty to pass up. It was basically a long bag with holes in it and the plant inside. The plant was in a pot that I think was approprate size and it was wrapped in plastic and had a rubber band holding the plastic around the base. I bought a book and some Orchid fertalizer and orchid bark. The pot was too small from what I read on the internet and I got another pot and repotted it with the orchid bark. I put the recomended amount of fertalizer every fourth watering. I thought I might have been waiting too long between waterings, but it was around 4 to five days. I'm not sure, but I think that the cardboard that had the picture on it said it's a militonia/brassia mix. Not sure if I got the spelling right there. Anyway, the repotting was in october. It didn't have very good light, but the plant didn't get worse or better. I moved to college in january and it had better light though not spectacular. It actually started to go down hill slowly. The top of the tallest leaf started to turn yellow. I had to cut off about three inches. There are a few black spots on the leaves. I finally found a flourescent desk light that is pretty long. I set it up about six inches over the plant. I cut off another half inch that had turned yellow. I leave the light on from the time I get up till the time I go to bed, which is usually about 14 to 16 hours. Since then it hasn't gotten any worse which I take as a good sign, but I don't think it's gotten any better. I know not to expect much since it's my first and it's a walmart plant, but I would really like it if you could help me save it. I also heard that you should be able to turn the pot upside down with out the bark or plant falling out, which you can't do with mine, but I also heard that my plant likes air around it's roots. These seem to conflict. My only worry is that it doesn't seem to retain water. I thank you for bearing with me and this long explenation. Any help is appreciated and if you have any questions that I didn't answer the feel free to ask them. Thanks.

PS - I did have urls to pics of my plants here, but they said that since I hadn't posted at least fives times that I couldn't ad e-mails or urls to other sites. To get around that, you can e-mail me at [ Email address Edited ]