Newby needs help

[dillon935]

Hello eveyone... this newby needs your help. Problem is bud blast... I got this orchid about a month ago with beautiful flowers and lots of buds. It seemed really happy and was doing fine until this past weekend. Suddenly some of my buds dried up and fell off. I don't want to lose more buds or do any further harm to the orchid as it's really healthy overall. The roots are really tight in the pot. Is that okay for the plant? Just wonder what I'm doing wrong. It's has light, humidity, ventilation...

[mehitabel]

It's so disheartening to lose all the flowers on a beautiful plant all at once. A year's work to get the flowers all gone in an instant!

There are lots of reasons for losing a few buds, including cold drafts or being too near apples, etc. But whenever I have lost a lot of flowers and buds all at once, it has been a problem of the phal getting too dry. This can happen either because I let watering go one day too long, or because the roots are compromised.

Your roots look good on the outside of the pot, but unless you can remember letting it get too dry, I would take it out of the pot and check the roots.

These culture notes from the Canadian Orchid Congress emphasize the importance of roots for the health of a phal

Phalaenopsis Orchid Culture

[dillon935]

Mehitabel - thanks so much for your empathetic response you are correct it just breaks my heart to lose those buds. It could have been letting it go dry but that would have been only briefly like a day or so. I've got to be more diligent with that orchid as I'm so careful about over watering and it's not in a mixed shagnum medium like the other plants; shagnum seems to hold water. I guess you can understand what I mean. Thanks again.

[Ben G]

that hapend to my first orchid

[dillon935]

Originally Posted by Ben G

that hapend to my first orchid

What a bummer!!!!