So back when I moved into my current house (about a year ago), I inherited a greenhouse from the previous homeowners. In that greenhouse sat a mystery plant-it looked like a mini bamboo plant. Turns out-it was a Dendrobium plant (possibly a Den. Phal-definitely not a nobile-type).
It was in horrible shape-it had a huge mass of dead/rotting roots and all the canes were beginning to yellow. There were two small green sections. After reading some posts online about people growing Dendrobium keikis from cut canes, I decided just to give it a go and see what would happen.
One of the canes eventually yellowed, but on the other one...
(Ignore the potting soil-I was a complete orchid noob then :P) A green nub was growing!
A few months later:
A tiny keiki was growing!
After finding out that orchids hate soil and needed a medium which provided plenty of aeration, I switched the growing keiki over to some sphagnum moss. Some tiny roots were a bit stained brown, but new ones were already beginning to grow. A few weeks later:
It had eight roots, all with healthy growing tips. I thought it was going to be smooth sailing from here.
Turns out I was mistaken.
As winter arrived, root growth slowly came to a halt. I attributed that to the decrease in sunlight. Some white stuff (I think it's salt buildup from my water supply) began taking over the moss, so I repotted the keiki with a fresh batch of moss.
However, as we approached the middle of winter,
some of the longer roots began going brown.
(You can see a greener root compared to two brown ones)
Eventually they died-I gently pinched them to make sure-all the brown ones were squishy.
Meanwhile, the keiki lost two of its smaller leaves. The two biggest/newest leaves remain to this day. The newest leaf was still closed and growing at the beginning of the winter, but has opened a tiny bit since the beginning of March (the top part is still closed.) I have no idea why the longer roots died-I'm assuming it was a result of the water being too hard.
I bought a gallon of distilled water to use with the keiki, and so far it's been working okay-no more dying roots.As of today, it has at least three roots still alive-they green up when watered. However there are still some salt traces on the moss-should I repot the keiki again to some fresh moss or leave it alone? I'm afraid repotting it again will stress it out too much.
Here it is today-
The two smaller roots in the picture are alive-the bigger one going downwards is dead.
What can I do to help this guy along? Right now it sits on a windowsill facing south. I water (I pour water into the tray and let the moss soak it up) it whenever the moss dries out completely-about once a week or so. I have not fertilized it at all. The mother cane is still green-just a bit shriveled, so I assume it still has some nutrients for the keiki. The humidity in the room is around 35%. Temperatures range from around 67*F at night to 74*F during the day.
I would really like this guy to survive-it would be amazing
Thanks in advance!
ETA-the remaining roots have not resumed growth yet even though days have been getting longer. No growing tips are visible-just the tiniest green dot in the center part of where the root ends.
Tiny Dendrobium keiki-Help with a root mystery
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