Another rescue up for your approvals!

[SarinahL]

So, I've got another rescue-case.
I was at my grandma's this afternoon and she has an astounding amount of plants, and especially orchids. She has such green fingers, they make mine seem black.

Unfortunately, as this doesn't seem to happen often, she had some keiki's on some of her phals. Not knowing what this meant, and this being a spike keiki on a spike going brown, she cut it off spike and all and tried putting it up in water and then in a pot. Unfortunately, the spike kept growing brown all the way and the keiki went to waste. Until I saw it.

So, it has one good root and I'm well aware it is severely dehydrated. I love orchids and have many, so these little projects are always rewarding to me. And I'm not binning this one quite yet..there is some hope, I'm sure.

I'm giving it a total soak in a bucket right now. Do you guys think that is alright? Is it okay to add fertilizer, say, half of usual amount, to that water?

I'm planning to put it on sphag, maybe sphag and bag.






I've got another, much less hopeless rescue keiki, which seems to be an already dead motherplant, with a keiki, with a keiki, both needing to be rescued! But they have much more roots.

I also got two of her best Phals that have been spiking and blooming for years, I've ogled them for as long, too
I'll post pics of them later, in case you don't believe me after the pictures of this butchery!
There was also this gorgeous golden/purple/red/white colored Noid, but she threw herself before it to save it from my grubby little fingers, as she got it from my nephew.

[Ladyofthelakes]

I can't advise much on keikis as I am dealing with my first one.

But I did have a chuckle or two reading about your shinanigans with your good hearted granny.

She must be a wealth of knowledge about orchids

Happy rescuing thanks for the post.

[Ron]

Hi, from looking at the photos, the root looks ok, I would pot it up in an open type mix, keeping it slightly moist until the root starts to grow. place it in a warm spot out of direct sunlight, only mist the leaves light until they recover.
I would only use a very week seaweed base fertilizer until the plant gets established.
Nice of you to give such a sick plant a chance in life.

[orchids4me]

Good luck with them

[SarinahL]

Thanks all!
It's still doing good, in the sense that nothing much has changed. As orchids seem to die quicker than they can put out new growths, I think thats a good thing, so far...

Right now I immerse it in very, very weak fertilized water for a half hour each day, drying of the leaves carefully to avoid rot, then put it in moist sphag.

[Rema]

I would love to know how this turned out!

[SarinahL]

Good actually, put out a couple of leaves, the oldest ones died off. It all went very quick, quicker than I'm used to for phals. The roots haven't developed any further, though, so it's still an ICU kind of project..

[1joyceh]

Sounds like you did a great job SarinahL