Dendrobium leaves

[AmyP71109]

A new blog entry has been added:

Dendrobium leaves

Help! I'm just getting into orchids so I'm openly naive and trying to learn more! I bought a dendrobium from the orchid show and didn't even notice there were black marks on the leaves, and it's not doing great..it's starting to droop a little bit.

[Bloomin_Aussie]

What sort of dendrobium is it?
To me it just looks like it has been burned by the sun - going by that photo at least. Do you have a larger picture of the whole plant?

[AmyP71109]

The stick it came with says 'CSLC. Ken Dream x LC. Tokyo Magic'

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[Bloomin_Aussie]

That's not a dendrobium... from the tag I would say the LC stands for Laeliocatteleya.

Where do you keep the plant? ie. what sort of lighting and does that silver bucket thing have any drainage?

[AmyP71109]

Thank you! I wasn't 100% sure that it actually was a dendrobium! I feel so lost!

I have a pot inside the silver pot that has drainage holes in the side and bottom.

I just got it two days ago. I kept it near the back window and I don't think it was getting enough light there, so I've moved it to the front window, it gets more light...I keep the curtains closed but the rest of them have been doing well there.

[Bloomin_Aussie]

Hard to tell what media is being used but I'd suggest using something rather coarse. Most of these orchids are epiphytes and like to have a bit of air through their roots. If the silver pot doesn't have any holes around the bottom the media may be staying too wet. Which is going to promote fungal growth.

Keep an eye on the black bits. If they look like they are getting bigger, might be best to snip those parts of the leaves off but I think your main concern should be correct lighting, drainage and air movement.