HELP! what is it and what do i do?
Ok so I just bought myself a cute little orchid from a nursery and I really want to keep this one alive. 5 years a go I had 3 phalaenopsis orchids at different times and all ended up dying. After the blooms fell off the stems went brown all the way down and then the leave started falling off. I still don’t know what I did wrong there. So this time I went with something different only I don’t know what it is.
The container says Oncidium Red with Yellow. And that’s it. The blooms are approx 2” wide and 2.5” tall and are fragrant. Not terribly so, it sits beside me on the desk as I type and I can not smell it but if I lean over an sniff a blossom it has a definite sweet smell, and then it makes me sneeze (lots of allergies). Inside the blossoms look a deep fuchsia with yellow centres and white and fuchsia lips, outside however it looks more of a deep kind of rusty red with some light yellow in the lip.
I was wondering if any one could tell me the following:
1. what is it?
2. when should I re-pot it and should I re-pot it into an ‘orchid pot’ that has holes in the side? Or should I be using plastic, terra cotta, glazed> or something else pots.
3. how often do I water it and how often to mist?
4. what exact lighting conditions are good? I have a very small basement apartment with limited options on where I can put it that the cats cant get to it. There is a ledge in the kitchen above my stove that gets direct afternoon light (though I know that they usually don’t like this) or next-door to the kitchen I have the bathroom with frosted glass windows (still facing west) that gets lots of afternoon light and direct late afternoon light, and I am putting a curtain up there. I also have a south facing bedroom window (faces another house) but the cats use that one so I would rather not take it from them. The original plan was to place it on the back of the toilet under the window.
ALSO there is one leave that is wilty and yellowing at the end, and a couple leaves have dark brown/rust/black spots. There is also one flower that is wilting and another that has been broken off. And I just knocked it over and it hit the floor…. Did I just kill it? One of the stems is bent over and it does not look good for it. Who
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