Quote:
Originally Posted by deerfern
Ok, got the pics! Thanks. Just still can't get that orientation right.
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That looks great to me deerfern. Great. Your orchid pot has good size drainage hole at the bottom too, right? Hopefully it has drainage holes down the bottom too.
But looks good. Well done with the potting.
I attached your same image, and have highlighted in
blue colour ----- a region of the lava rock for which you could water ----- focus most of the water in the region around the rim/edge of the pot. It doesn't need to be strictly very close to the edge ..... no need to be precise. That is, it doesn't have to be a thin band. A thick band of wet media around the outskirts of the pot is just fine.
The idea is that the lava rock in the outer regions of the pot will become quite wet, and will create moisture/humidity within the pot. For regular orchids with regular roots in the pot ----- this may help prevent the bulk of the root mass from gathering or collecting too much water, leading to a very long-term soggy root mass and possibly harmful state.
If you have a basic water spraying nozzle (just a hand-sprayer or something), then you could use that to water the media. With water spray nozzles, just make sure to water for long enough time ----- otherwise just spraying for a few seconds over the surface can be just like wetting our mouth slightly (ie. not good) ------ as in not enough water to penetrate down into the depths of the pot.
Otherwise, if no spray nozzle, then it doesn't matter. A cup or anything --- small watering can etc could be used.
For your orchid that doesn't have much roots right now, you can put a fair bit of water closer-in toward the orchid too. But not as heavy in watering when very close in nearer to the orchid ----- ie. spray much much less water around the central regions of the pot - some water .... but not heaps of it.
Just allow the media closer to the orchid to become lightly moist ..... not sopping or dripping wet. This doesn't necessarily mean that your orchid or other orchids can't handle having very wet lava rock close very close to it (or under it) ------ but just do it this way for now (only very light spray watering for media regions very close-up to the orchid) ----- to be on the safe side.
Also - if you do water the media toward the rim of the pot ------ you can water that region pretty much ANY time you like. No need to wait for that region to dry out - although, for regular orchids with lots of roots ---- the occasional dry out can help cut down on unwanted activity in the media etc.
Preferably ---- some natural breeze or air-movement in the growing area will be highly beneficial. Air-flow allows the bulb etc to dry, and can prevent unwanted activity like bacterial/fungal activity - that could cause bulb rot, and/or leaf rot etc.
Other than that....... just maintain a good growing temperature range --- avoid super cold - especially super cold and super wet roots. And provide medium light level (not direct sunlight for now) for your orchid, and it should recover.
Definitely avoid the sphagnum media from now on, at least until you learn to master the usage of sphagnum.
Assuming your orchid recovers nicely with the lava rock, you may even get hooked on lava rock heheh.
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