Help with Dendrobium

[Chloe]

Hi everyone,
am hoping someone can help me with my Dendrobium. It's my first orchid was given to me in early June it bloomed for 2 months the first week was rough as I watered it too much and the roots started to rot so I removed it from the pot dried them out and everything went well for the next two months. Then the blooms died off and the stems followed so I trimmed the stems down to the base as was advised at my local garden centre. The leaves then seemed to die off in late August and now I am left with just the roots and a stub. I'm really not sure how to proceed at this point and am finding all kinds of conflicting info online. I soaked it recently for 10minutes and gave it orchid food but still nothing. Should I give up on this and start again (which I hate to do) or is there something I can do. Please help.

[Cynthia, Prescott, AZ]

It would help if we had a picture or a real name on a tag. What you may have is a deciduous Dendrobium. Sometimes, with a change in environment, greenhouse to a home, the plants go deciduous a little earlier than normal, but I have plenty of leaves falling from my Dens right now. Since we don't as yet have some way of identifying the type of Den you have, I will have to guess you have a nobile type as this is the more likely to drop its leaves. Nobiles like it cool in winter, but high light, and like being mostly dry, so after watering, let the pot get very dry, maybe stay dry for a few days to a week, and then water very well again. When you see a new growth in the spring you can start to water more frequently, and when the roots are a couple of inches long, you can keep it a bit on the damp side until the new growth stops growing and the flowering is over. Phal types are kept warm all winter, but get a similar wet/dry treatment. Generally, the nobiles have floppy leaves and the warmer growing phal types have fairly stiff leaves. Also, nobiles have the flowers spaced along the length of the canes, with phal types have fairly long spikes of flowers coming out of the tops of the canes. If your flowers grew different from these descriptions, you may have an entirely different Den from the common ones. Cynthia

[jerrymeola]

Dendrobiums lose a lot of leaves every year. So things may be normal. I do not like that it lost all its leaves but the roots have been stressed and it happens. If the canes are still green they can recover. They will put out new growth at the base. They will not grow new leaves out of the old canes but may flower off old canes. If they all go shriveled and brown the plant is lost.

At this time of year you may not see new growth until the spring. Do not over water or fertilize to push growth. That only works on actively growing plants.

I doubt you have deciduous Dendrobiums. Of the tens of millions or so dens being grown in Florida I know of only one grower raising deciduous species and he only sells 20-30 a year. They are not popular commercially.

Nobiles also are not common except at special nurseries. They can lose all their leaves and flower directly from bare canes. Go to the photo gallery and search on Nobile to see the difference in flowering on canes rather then stems.