Inherited rare neglected orchids & have never cared for Orchids before

[Micky]

Hi all,

I have recently inherited about 20 exotic orchids from my Granma who lives in North Queensland, Australia. She hasn't been able to care for them for quite a while now and they were prize winning once.

I thought I'd brighten her days by reviving them for her, but I don't know anything about orchids.

So far I have learnt how to cut them back and re-pot them in Kwinken rock in a plastc full-mesh pot. I have also been misting them with a diluted orchid fertiliser every couple of days. Granma said to just let them be and they will grow, however Innisfail is a warm very humid environment and she had them housed in a shade house, so they had the conditions they needed to survive. I live in Brisbane and the weather varies a lot and is quite dry.

I have been googling a lot to get more information, but I don't know what species they are as the tags have all faded and they are pretty sad looking.

If I can get advice on how to revive them outdoors and indoors it would be much appreciated!!

[jsehorn]

It would be very helpful if you could tell us what kind of orchids they are. Once you make 5 posts, you could post pictures and we could help identify them (at the genus level, we won't be able to tell you what species or grex).

[Micky]

I have absolutely no idea, but once I can post pictures I definitely will. I think there are a few local varieties too...

[Ron]

Hi Micky, welcome to the Geeks forum.
Very nice of you to be looking after Grandmothers orchids

[squire]

Hi, I'm in brisbane too. Once you post pics I might be of help.

[orchids4me]

Hi and welcome to the forum!!
Any of those orchids have any name tags in the pots by chance so we can help with culture while waiting on pics ??

[Micky]

Thanks all. I have managed to revive one of the orchids, but it only flowered for 2 days... Not sure if this is normal. I will post pics as soon as I can

[Micky]

Okay, I have changed my profile pic to the only orchid I have managed to get to bloom....

[Micky]

My avatar picture is one of my granma's orchids, I have no idea what type of orchid this is. It only flowered for 2 days....

[pikkumyy]

hey Micky, im from brisbane too so quire and i can be of help (not meaning that everyone else can't help tremendously).

it's hard to tell from your avatar what the orchid is, a lot of the time it's really helpful if you can post a picture of the plant and it's flower, but when identifying a genus i find it more helpful to see the plant (sorry if that sounds agressive, i can't think of a way to word it differently). i would sudgest to you to go to an orchid society to get some help, but i dont think any would be having their meetings in december because of christmas.

and now that you've posted 5 posts you should now be able to post pictures so im really looking forward to seeing them.


p.s. i started growing orchids the exact same way you are.

[Micky]

Hi Pikkumyy,

Not a problem, I don't find that aggressive at all. I have been told that the orchid in the picture is a Dendrobium Crumenatum (from Christmas Island?). It only flowered for 2 days, my aunty (who knows about as much as I know about orchids...) seems to think I may have over-watered it.

I will have to take photo's of the rest for you and post them. I'll make sure I take pics of the whole thing

Some of them have new growth. I did have a little help with the repotting of them and have diluted an orchid fertiliser to mist over them once a week. I was told that regular diluted fertilising is preferable over once a year heavy dosing from a friend who has some orchids... Although Granma just said 'rip the dead bits off, stick them in Kwinken rock, fertilise them once a year and leave them alone'... Not really helpful, I know.

[rcb]

It does look like it could be Dendrobium crumenatum. As for the flowers lasting only two days, - well that is what they do. It has nothing to do with overwatering.

[kmarch]

I agree. Den crumenatum (note capitalization) is quite common here in Australia and i think there's a good chance that's what your avatar pic is.

[Micky]

Oh cool, that's great to know... I was worried that I might be killing it with love.. hehe
Anyways, I have finally taken pics of each of the orchids I have, so here they are. Any help would be much appreciated, I think a couple of plants have tags, but I haven't really inspected them yet.

[Micky]

Argh!! It won't let me upload the photo's... Keeps coming up with an error message...

[Filb]

Are you using the manage attachments feature? Make sure you note the size restrictions of photos. I think jpgs can only be 700 pixels maximum.
I'm anxious to see your collection

[Emma Grey]

You can also try uploading one photo to the post at a time. This sometimes works better for me.

[Micky]

Okay, I had a problem with the file size...
Here are the first 10

[Micky]

And the next 5... I'll take photo's of the rest later
I appreciate everyone's help... Thank you so much!! oxoxo

[Daethen]

Is that how they came to you or have you repotted?

[Micky]

They were repotted in Kwinken rock.

A friend who lives in Rockhampton repotted them as they were really badly deteriorated, so he got rid of the dead parts, potted them in the Kwinken rock using the original baskets.

[pikkumyy]

hey Micky, from what i can see i would say that
1,2,3,5,11,13 and 14 would be cattleya of some kind and that
4,6,7,8,9,10, 12 and 15 are some kind of dendrobium. good luck and i can't wait to see more photo's

[Micky]

Originally Posted by pikkumyy

hey Micky, from what i can see i would say that
1,2,3,5,11,13 and 14 would be cattleya of some kind and that
4,6,7,8,9,10, 12 and 15 are some kind of dendrobium. good luck and i can't wait to see more photo's

Thanks. I'm purchasing my first shadehouse next week and currently have them taking up space in the shade on my patio! They seem to be doing okay so far, so keep your fingers crossed for me

I'll keep you posted on any progress

[Micky]

Okay, so I found some tags on the orchids, can't tell you which is which though because i'm pretty sure there was some mix up when repotting...

1. Den. Autumn Show x Polar Queen
2. Lc. Platinum Sun (that's all that's legible)
3. Onc. (Apricot Flame x Golden Triangle) X Onc. Erin Kobayashi 'Lahiana Gold'
4. Onc. Maculatum Solendidium

All the tags are pretty deteriorated, so this was the best I could do, and I have no idea if they are attached to the correct plants!!

[pikkumyy]

ooh, i didnt see any oncs, though when they start growing again, and eventually flower, we may be able to help you with the name, and im only saying that because you already have some tags. whereas if you didnt have any then it wouldnt be possible to get a correct identification because there are so many hybrids

good luck and i cant wait to see the shadehouse

[Micky]

Originally Posted by pikkumyy

ooh, i didnt see any oncs, though when they start growing again, and eventually flower, we may be able to help you with the name, and im only saying that because you already have some tags. whereas if you didnt have any then it wouldnt be possible to get a correct identification because there are so many hybrids

good luck and i cant wait to see the shadehouse

Thanks, they aren't doing so well right now... the leaves on the Dendrobiums are yellowing/browning and falling off one by one.

And the bulby part at the bottoms are browning and shrivelling up... I'm being very careful not to over/underwater, have stopped the weak fertiliser (I thought they may be getting over fertilised).

Some of them were sprouting new shoots and roots a little while ago, but in the last week they seem to be dying and I'm not sure why, I haven't done anything differently.

3 of them seem to have no roots, so I have enlisted the help of an orchid grower here who has given me some stuff to stimulate root growth.

It's getting a bit depressing really....

[pikkumyy]

im not sure what coule be happening to your den's, maybe they dont have many good roots that can keep them going.
maybe they could have a disease/infection, maybe you could ask your orchid grower friend if you could borrow some pesticide/fungicide and get them to show you what to do.

sometimes my orchids grow new roots and shoots too but then they die for some reason too,

if i have an orchid that has very few roots i try water it a bit more often then i would normal healthy ones because they need the extra water because they don't have enough roots to take up the required amount. but be sure not to keep it too wet or what roots it does have will rot.

what part of brisbane are you on? i'm near near the Redlands

also keep your chin up, i remember when a heap of my orchids got sick and everything was going down hill, i just wanted to give up the entire hobby because my first orchids were my grandma's as well. but after a while they slowly started to perk up a bit and with each little new growth and leaf i got more and more confident, but something that really helped was that at the very beginning i bought 2 or 3 new healthy plants and they helped to keep my spirits up, because one thing that was getting me down was that the plants that i'd inherited seemed to be die-ing so obviously i was doing it wrong, except when i got the healthy ones i realised that i was doing it right, except the inherited plants were just REALLY sick, so maybe if you got a new plant or two then they would help keep your spirits up, i know they helped me.

[Micky]

Originally Posted by pikkumyy

im not sure what coule be happening to your den's, maybe they dont have many good roots that can keep them going.
maybe they could have a disease/infection, maybe you could ask your orchid grower friend if you could borrow some pesticide/fungicide and get them to show you what to do.

sometimes my orchids grow new roots and shoots too but then they die for some reason too,

if i have an orchid that has very few roots i try water it a bit more often then i would normal healthy ones because they need the extra water because they don't have enough roots to take up the required amount. but be sure not to keep it too wet or what roots it does have will rot.

what part of brisbane are you on? i'm near near the Redlands

also keep your chin up, i remember when a heap of my orchids got sick and everything was going down hill, i just wanted to give up the entire hobby because my first orchids were my grandma's as well. but after a while they slowly started to perk up a bit and with each little new growth and leaf i got more and more confident, but something that really helped was that at the very beginning i bought 2 or 3 new healthy plants and they helped to keep my spirits up, because one thing that was getting me down was that the plants that i'd inherited seemed to be die-ing so obviously i was doing it wrong, except when i got the healthy ones i realised that i was doing it right, except the inherited plants were just REALLY sick, so maybe if you got a new plant or two then they would help keep your spirits up, i know they helped me.

Thanks for the motivation, I do have a couple of 'new' plants that were bought with flowers on them. They do help, I am just hoping to revive Granma's ones as well.

On the upside, I have noticed that one of Granma's has some new growth both in the roots and shoots, so I'm a little chuffed about that