Dendrobium Spectabile - chopped off canes, snails. Need care advice!
 

Hey everyone!

So I picked up a dendrobium spectabile today at the Cherry City Orchid Society show and sale. It was my first orchid show–*how exciting!!!

Den Spectabile has been on my wishlist for a while.

I have several questions for you guys, so please answer what you can:

1- SNAILS IN PLANT!!! WHAT DO??!! HALP!!!! :bua:

2- The people who sold it to me told me that the old canes on it will dry up, and should therefore be cut off. Is this nonsense? I feel like it is nonsense and perhaps the plant just needs some different care and the old canes won't all dry up and die. The plant has two healthy canes, four new growths coming, and then a bunch of old yellow hacked-off stubs.

3- I want to repot this ASAP to deal with the snails. What would you guys recommend? I am thinking of mixing in a few handfuls of sphagnum to the mix.

4- My understanding of care is this:
-High high high high light. Vanda or brassavola light will be appreciated by this plant.
-No winter rest, just water before it gets totally dried out.
Would you have anything to add or suggest? Thank you.

I am going to just go wild trying to get rid of the snails and old growths and things when I come back home later this week.

Let me know what you guys think!! Have a good one!

Hi Astrid,
1) for snails: unpot and check everything (roots, leaves, pb etc).

2) yes, canes, after some years, will dry and die and can be cut at the bottom

4) yes, a friend of mine told me the same advice: alwayswarm and bright light, a bit less water in winter than in spring/summer/autumn

Thank you, have a great day!

I too have a Dendrobium Spectabile that is trying to bloom. However two of the four buds are starting to yellow while the other two are blooming. This morning one of the blooming ones is starting to yellow. Help?! Is it too much water? Too little water? Lighting or what. I have bright lights at about a foot away, it is warm and humid in that bathroom. Right now it is used solely as my indoor greenhouse. Here's the pic

Nooooo!!!
Oh that sucks! That is something you might want to start a new thread for, so more people will see it and give you a direct reply.

I wonder- I mean buds can blast for all kinds of reasons. I got a nelly isler in bud this January – through the mail system!! – and all its buds blasted off. It was so sad.

It's good you got that plant to even go into bud, though! I've heard they can be pretty picky.

Usually this stuff happens to my plants when I chage fast some condition (light or temps or water or air movement).

Had to be the lights then. I moved them from my office into the extra bathroom I converted into a growing area. Warmer than my office.

DON'T cut the canes! They're reserves for the plant and can foster future growths. When (and ONLY when) they start to yellow they can be removed- if it's green, leave it be. My spectabile's canes live or years.
But those already butchered yellow stubs- yeah, they can go.

I don't know where people get the idea to remove older but still healthy growths. One of my sister's patients told her to cut off her cattleya's pseudobulbs after they finished blooming- I had to give her a good yelling at. Two plants died anyhow.

Yeah it seems like such nonsense!!
I'm so irritated. I left the healthy canes and the new growths and chopped off those unsightly horrid things. Ughhhhhh why do people do weird things to orchids???

Not to mention the plant was very overpotted and I found millipedes and other lil nasties in there. I have fully unpotted it and pruned off every old and pre-chopped bit.

I am never afraid to twist off a nasty/rotting/brown pseudobulb here and there, but I fully understand the value of the other healthy backbulbs! :)

Astrid,
For what It's worth: My mother who lives in E Africa has snail problems. She soaks the plants overnight (plants are fully submerged into the water) the snails drown...
Hope this helps.

Hi Astrid! Just wondering how your spectabile is recovering, I hope it's kicking Axe and taking names! :) if it is recovering, I just wanted to ask what care you provided for it to recover (did you give it warmer temps, more light, less water, any growth hormones or ferts etc.) I just recently bought one in a tragic state from Lowes and just wanted to know what other's plan of action is for rescuing these beauties! Any advice or updates would be appreciated, many thanks!

---------- Post added at 03:58 AM ---------- Previous post was at 03:41 AM ----------

PS, on a last note, I've had good results using a tiny tiny light sprinkling of horticultural sulfur mixed into my media to deter snails and other bugs.
What I do usually is pre-soak or rinse the bark mix(I usually use bark/charcoal/ perlite mixes) and when the media is nice and "moist" (a creepy sounding word, I know :P ) I take my can of sulfur dust and just shake it over the media like I'm shaking table salt onto food. I don't squeeze the can to release a sulfur dust plume, although that can be done with less sensitive plants, but I wouldn't use that much for orchids. I just get a fine yellow mist on the media and mix it in well, then use this to repot my orchids. Just a suggestion to tuck away if you ever need it :)