How to kill a Brassavola nodosa?
Okay, so as many beginner growers I focused on Phalaenopsis orchids during my first year. I recently decided to spice things up and got me a young Brassavola nodosa, about 2 years away from blooming size.
The B. nodosa arrived in a 2 inch pot, the plant was so small that it completely detached from the medium and was just loose in the package. It took me about 5 days to repot it after I received it. In the meantime, I just left it in its original pot. I made a small hole to try to stabilize it and crossed my fingers that what seemed like rotten bark wouldn't kill the orchid until I had time to repot it.
To my surprise, it kept growing roots like crazy. After repotting I noticed a period of perhaps two days in which the plant didn't seem to do anything.
I repotted it in a basket-like pot (photo attached) with good drainage. The bottom layer of the pot is filled with leca which was cleaned and soaked for 48h. The main medium is Orchiata bark (precision size) with some perlite and smaller leca beads mixed into it. Around the pot I placed maybe 3-4 strings of sphagnum moss forming a swirl upwards on the sides of the pot (I live in a very dry climate so adding sphagnum helps delay watering by about a day or two). At the bottom of my pots I usually place half leca for drainage and half sphagnum moss making sure that bottom sphagnum is connected with the rest of the pot (the swirl), I do this as prep for potential travel, having sphagnum "swirling" around the sides of the pot has made it easier for me to achieve that wicking effect evenly distributing moisture in the pot.
As opposed to my Phalaenopsis, the "repotting" shock was almost non existent for my Brassavola. Within 2-4 days it started growing roots again, like crazy! I would even call it aggressive!! The roots push the bark around and look healthy and strong. The plant is pretty small so I staked it for stability and held it with thread which strongly contributed to the root growth. I did not, however, press down the media or hit it down as I've seen some people do when repotting Cattleyas. I felt like the plant was too small for that.
I water it about once a week by placing the pot into a deli container and soaking the pot for 5-10 minutes. On hotter weeks I water twice a week. I keep the same feeding regime that I use for my Phalaenopsis orchids: 100 ppm N a week, flushing every fourth watering, I use distilled and RO water, I use Quantum Orchid sporadically sometimes twice a month, sometimes weekly at a less concentrated solution. Finally, I prepped all my media with a Kelp extract (half of my plants were on Bloom City's Clean Kelp, and the other half in some old Kelpmax. I currently use Kelpak for everything) and drenched the media and roots in the kelp solution in preparation for repotting. I continue Kelpak monthly for most orchids, bi-monthly for my healthiest, strongest ones.
So, while I patiently wait for my Phalaenopsis orchids to grow at the speed of a DMV clerk filling a form... I sit here watching this Brassavola nodosa grow like a teenager on steroids... so the question is... how do you kill it? What am I missing here that will kill this plant?!?!?! It's too good to be true!!!
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