Sedirea japonica and Phalaenopsis stuartiana Care ?s

[fishmom]

My Sedirea japonica grows in a chunky bark mix, watered like a phal, but it seems to enjoy more light than I would give to a phal. I have the sense that Sedireas are less demanding in terms of range of temperature and light than phals.

[aliceinwl]

Well I managed to kill one Sedirea.

I potted them up in bark and grew them alongside my indoor Phalaenopsis. One looked really good but neither seemed to be putting on any root growth in the substrate, and one started getting really long twisting leaves like it wasn’t getting enough light.

I decided to move the one with the twisty leaves outside since I read they could take the cold and I could give it more light. I figured I’d experiment with this one since the other was doing well. To my surprise, the indoor plant that was looking good suddenly dropped all of its leaves; I unpotted it and the roots and stem were completely dead. The leaves were all firm and green when they dropped and it literally happened overnight.

The outdoor one is growing roots now, but only air roots. It’s in the regular size orchiata (whatever falls between the fine and medium grade) in a clear slotted pot: both plants were potted this way.

I’m wondering if I should transfer my surviving plant to something like a slatted hanging wood pot and a coarser grade bark and keep it outside. I wouldn’t be able to keep up with watering a mounted plant so that’s not really an option. The fact that it’s not pushing any roots in the pot has me thinking it’s not happy with the conditions in there. Despite all this, it does look like it’s going to spike.