To Water or Not?

[anna1029]

I watered my Phal last week on Saturday. It's planted in moss. I haven't had the chance to pick up skewers to use that method. However, when I lift the moss from the top of the pot, and touch underneath it still feels pretty wet. Could it be just on the surface or is it all the way through like that? The moss on top that just seems to be lying there what seems more like for decoration is dry, but underneath is wet. Should I give it another few days?

[fred]

I find the skewer method does not count when useing spaghnum moss.

spaghnum moss must be kept moist and not wet.

A soaking once a week would be good.
Iet your orchid soak up the water by placing the pot into some water in the sink or in a bucket as it will soak up the water from the bottom up.

I hope this helps

[mayres]

I'd be really careful watering if the moss is still wet underneath. I know lots of people like sphag for orchids and phals in particular, but nearly every one I have ever seen around here in sphag has root rot from overwatering. After you have had them for awhile another indicator of when to water (besides the skewer method) is how heavy the pot/plant is. You learn after awhile to guage how dry they are by how heavy they feel. Unless it is very warm my guess is they will go longer than a week in moss easily. My phals go 2-3 weeks in a coir mixture. I have one phal that I purchased recently that is in sphag and I have been watching it out of curiosity to see how it needs watering in comparison to my other 35 phals in coir - seems very similar. Another issue with sphag is how tightly it is packed into the pots - this will dramatically affect how quickly it dries out. Different sized pots, plants and different environments will react differently. Freds conditions and plants may work wonderfully with weekly watering - but not my phals here during the cool months and not yet this spring. Good luck - Mike

[brookn]

Mike is it pretty humid there? My sphag is going about a week and that is it. Maybe less. Our humidity has been outrageous, but I have a fan on the orchids.
Anna I have been watering my phal in sphag. like this: I lift the pot and see if it feels light, then I carefully poke my pinky and wiggle it to the middle. If it feels damp only in the very middle, I water. The moss on the top of mine always feels dry and crispy long before the middle is dry enough to water.

Phals like sphag but I feel it should be just packed enough to keep the plant from moving around and not any more. Mine is very loosely packed around my roots. Sphag is so hard for some though because you really do feel you should water them more! I know that is how I killed my first orchid, long ago. Didn't buy any more for a long time. Newbies-always check to see if your plant is being smothered by too much sphag!! A lot of them get packed that way and it kills the roots. My phal had way too much in it when I bought it. I had a really hard time prying it out of the pot to remove some of it. Good luck anna hope that helps.

[tom499]

Can we have a picture of it?

The size of the orchid compared to the pot and the amount of spaghnum will make a big difference.

Is it potted in pure spaghnum? I personally do not like this idea, for the reasons highlighted above by mayres, fred and brookn. I think its ok for smaller orchids, but not larger ones, and if used the pot must be as small as possible to hold the roots.

I say this from experience where i live. I had a masd. in pure spag. I didnt water it for a month after buying it, because whenever i checked it the moss was wet. I decided to repot it in bark and compost as it was quite big, and i was afraid of rotting.

I personally like to water my orchids alot, so i try and use the most open medium i can without causing the plant problems.

[anna1029]

I will to upload a picture later tonight when I'm home. As far as watering goes, in one of the comments it says that moss takes water from bottom up and that I should put the pot in water and just let it sit there. I'm sorry if this sounds silly, but should the water cover the entire pot and go through the top as well, or just let it soak up the water through the drain holes on the bottom? I'm new at this, so I apologize for silly questions.

[Ellen]

If the moss on top of the pot is, as you say, "just for decoration", you should investigate and see what the orchid is really potted in. Some vendors will plant in bark, but put moss over the top for decoration. If that's the case, get the moss off so that you can see what's really going on with your plant.

And to answer anna's question, it doesn't really matter whether you water sphag from the top or the bottom as long as you do it only when needed.