Oh, whee..................went to Lowe's today hoping for a few bargain orchids on their "live or die" table. I hit paydirt. There were about 7 on there and I took 4. They were phals.......one was $2.00 and the other 3 were $3.00 each. I kind of dug down through the moss to see if they had any amount of viable looking roots and I think they do. I took them up in the greenhouse when we got home and I took them out of the pots for a better look, I think they are all ok. I'll try and get a pic tomorrow.
Lowe's Bargain table
yaaa for you !! I sure wish our Lowes had orchids :o( but I did get one from a friend at work today kind of a rescue case we got it for her when she had breast cancer 3 years ago and she never repotted it or any thing the roots look sad but not dead and the leaves all died but two very sad ones so I tookit out of the pot and trimed all the dead root off gave it a good drink and repotted it will watch it to see if its going to make it or not I sure hope it dose its phal
My other phal has done so well on the piece of cork, I got more to put these on a piece too. All the pet shop had was a large round, so I will break it into at least 3 pieces, hopefully I can make 4 out of it. LOL
Way to go, Anna. Hope they all live for you.
Well, the 4 phals are mounted on some cork.............I don't hold out much hope for 2 of them. After taking them out of their pots and trimming off all the dead roots, there wasn't much there that looked viable. So, I put those 2 on the same piece of cork. The other 2 had really nice roots, didn't have to trim much out of those at all. So, I do have better than average hope for those. I took a couple pix, I'll try and post those tomorrow that show the lack of decent roots. They had them in a plastic pot which was set into a clay pot. The clay pots had NO drain holes. Good God.............and then they water them and the excess water has no place to go so they rot the roots. You'd think that for orchids they would at least set them in a clay pot with drainage when they come from the nursery (or wherever they spent their "formative years")
Don't give up hope, even a lack of roots isn't a death sentence, because they can take in a lot of moisture and nutrient through the leaves. Just keep up with the misting. I have a couple with hardly any roots, but the foliage is looking fine, and new roots are starting after about a month of tlc.
The ones I got were all in that same potting situation. Plastic inside clay with no drainage. The growers are motivated to have people kill those orchids so we will buy more. Cut some holes in the clay pots with a little Dremel wheel, and you can use those clay pots for other orchids.
But, how many people will NOT buy more orchids because they think that their care (or lack thereof) killed them and will not go to the expense of trying again?
So true, but I think a lot of non-gardener type people just buy those orchids as disposable decor. They're better value than cut flowers when the blooms last for a month or more.
The growers don't want them to put up more flowers, they want people to throw them away and buy a new one every month. Every one of my rescues from last fall had spent flower stems on them, and all but one (out of 5) have new buds coming now. I'm saying "nyah nyah, growers". LoL.
You would think that with what all goes into orchid culture, the growers would be ecstatic that "some" of us can keep them going. But, what do I know?