Dendrobium Berry Oda help: roots, shoots, repotting

[amia33]

Hello! I am a real novice with orchids and would like some advice about two things that are currently concerning me please. My orchid is a dendrobium Berry Oda and I've had her for around six months now, she's dropped her flowers once (I'm told this is normal after bringing them home) and now has one flower spike that started blooming last week

My biggest concern is the aerial roots, which look brown and a little shrivelled. Internet searching would suggest she is both over- and underwatered! Here is a picture:


The second thing is that she has some 'dead' looking flower stems where the flowers dropped a few weeks after I brought her home. Can I cut these off, as they're spoiling the look a bit? How is the best way to go about this?



Thank you for all help!

[amia33]

Hello again. Is anyone able to help me please? I've edited my post down to just two questions and resized a photo to make it easier to look at.

[cricketerry]

Ref the dried flower stems they can be cut as near to the main plant as possible without damaging the living plant.

[WaterWitchin]

Yep, those aerial roots aren't looking great. Appears to me you need to repot from the one picture I see, although the plant itself looks healthy.

Yes, once the scape is finished blooming, you can cut it back as close as you can without damaging the plant itself.

[Ray]

I suspect that the most significant thing a new orchid grower needs to understand is the need for water and air at the roots.

One of the more significant evolutionary adaptations of epiphytes is the use of thick, waxy cuticle layers on the vegetation, a strategy intended to reduce transpirational water loss. As that greatly limits foliar gas exchange as well, much of that has shifted to the root system.

When we water an orchid, most of it simply pours right through, some is immediately absorbed by the plant and the potting medium, and some is held by surface tension in the void spaces in the medium. If the potting medium is too dense, whether that be due to the use of too fine of a particle size, decomposition of organics resulting in smaller particles, or simple compacting of the medium (most significant with sphagnum moss), then a significant number of those voids can become "clogged" with water, cutting off the air flow to the root system, suffocating them. They then die and rot.

That means that we orchid growers must find a potting medium and container combination that holds enough moisture to make the plant happy under their individual growing conditions and personal tendencies to "mess with" their plants or not, but not so much that it suffocates it, and be sufficiently attentive to repot when the existing potting medium starts to become a problem.

It looks as if your dendrobium is there now, and has been for a while.

[amia33]

Wow, thank you so much! You've all been so helpful. Especially Ray, your detailed response has helped me find a new potting medium that hopefully my orchid will be much happier in. Thank you!