Knowledgebase

Dying orchids #749853

Asked May 13, 2021, 11:11 PM EDT

I have a large orchid that grew a keiki a few months ago. It was just leaves for a long time but now is starting to grow roots. It seems like it is killing the plant. It lost all of its main leaves and now the other stem is dying, along with the stem above the keiki. Is there any way to revive this plant? My other orchid is in full bloom right now, but the stem above the bloom branch is dying. Is that normal? It had four branches of blooms when I bought it. Finally, I rescued an orchid plant from a coworker's office which has been closed during Covid. It has gone through periods of severe drought, direct sun and overwatering. The leaves that are left are wrinkled and dull, but slightly better since I brought it home. It had root rot so I removed all of the dead roots and repotted it and put a dish of landscape rocks with water under it. It has not really made any progress in the month since I repotted it. Is there any hope for it?

Hennepin County Minnesota

Expert Response

Very nice, I have never had a Keiki form and I have been growing orchids for about 15 years. I usually have about 20 orchids. Orchid rescue is tricky, there are several strategies and what I do is to put the orchid in a high humidity environment. I do this by putting it in a large zip lock bag with water in the bottom. The medium is not in the water. Orchids as I am sure you appreciate are tropical and thrive with very high humidity, our winters are very hard on them. I have had limited success with rescuing orchids. I watched. About a dozen YouTube videos about rescuing orchids and tried the methods that made sense to me and weren’t too much work. 
Good luck, you have nothing to loose by trying. 

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