Problems with my phal

[moki]

Hi to all of you,

Firstly, sorry cause i posted in a wrong forum!heheh

Secondly I am new to orchids.

I never had one before and last August we bought one with my boyfriend. It was a gift to him for his new appartment.

Apparently the new appartment did not have enough light and we didn't know that orchids need light and the poor orchid lost it's flowers and its stem became brown so i decided to cut the stem of.


I thing my boyfriend watered it too much (ie twice a week instead of once). Also, once we left if at a sunny position in our house for nearly 1 hour!

I don't know what is wrong with the orchid but i think something IS WRONG!

There is a black thing developing near it's one leave (on the left side of the photoes as you can see. It seems to me that this leaf is melting at that point. Also if you take a good look at the photos it seems that the smallest leaf at the righ hand side of the photo is turning yellow. In addition a new leaf is trying to develop but it is trying for a loooooot of time! I mean it is trying to grown from mid-September!How is this possible?I thing you can not see the new leaf from the pics because it is too tiny and can not be captured clearly by my camera.

I think is good for you to know that i moved the orchid from my boyfriends house to my mother's house where light is more, and there is much more air ventilation.

Please help me! I don't know what i am doing wrong, i don't know a lot of things about orchids but what i do know is that they are very beautiful and that it would be a pitty if i loose this orchid.

If anybody can give me specific advice on how to rescue this orchid i would really appreciate it.

Thank you in advance

moki

[Cynthia, Prescott, AZ]

Your first picture is a little out of focus, but it looks like it may be mechanical damage. If it continues to grow, it is something else. The small leaf on the right may just be an aging or adjustment problem. I don't think you need to worry about it yet. The reason the new leaf is not growing is probably just that the plant is going thru a period of adjustment. Very low light can slow growth to near zero. I think you just need to be patient. For watering, use the skewer method to determine the actual need of the plant, which could change with conditions and seasons:Skewer use for watering of orchids

[moki]

Hi Cynthia

and thanks for replying.

what do you mean a mechanical problem?Also, if there is indeed a problem with my orchid...what do i do to stop it?or to prevent the disease from spreading?

Isn't it good to take measures from now?I am worring that if i delay then it might be too late

thnx
moki

[Cynthia, Prescott, AZ]

Mechanical damage, like something dropped on the plant that dinged the tissue and you now have a scar of dead tissue. Just wait to see if it starts to enlarge. It really doesn't look like a problem to me, but an in focus picture with very good lighting would help. If we remove pieces of leaf for every black spot, the plant would disappear fast. Occasional spots just happen, don't let it bother you. Now, if the spots look wet, have a clear quality to them, that would be a concern, but just being black is usually nothing of any consequence.

[moki]

I posted some pictures in the other forum (suggestions etc) were i initially wrongly posted my question ( it has the same title 'problems with my phal'). If you could take a look and give me your opinion it would be very valuable to me

thank you
moki

[jerrymeola]

Patience is what is called for here. You plant looks fine.

If the black spot was rot it would have spread rapidly. By now the plant would have been a candidate for the compose pile.

Phals only bloom once a year when they get a cool period (Under 50 at night) for about a month. So they naturally start setting buds now and flower in the late winter early spring.

If you bought yours in flower recently then they were artificially cooled to flower and may not have recovered to bloom again this winter.