Cattleya bulbs getting wrinkled, new growths skinny
 

Hi I’m new to growing cattleya orchids and I don’t think mine grows sheaths and idk if it’s going to bloom. I need some help because it’s also a hybrid. I purchased it in April so maybe it’s just not ready to bloom yet. The vendor said it was from Hawaii and is mature. The bad thing is I don’t get good sunlight at home so I’m using bright red and blue LED lights (it said they were full spectrum but I’m having second thoughts because the vendor isn't on amazon anymore and now i'm learning that full spectrum is white light) I water it every 7 days and fertilize every 2 weeks. Sometimes I spray the leaves but I'm not sure if that's helping humidity. If there's anyone from Louisiana that grows cattleyas? In what conditions do you grow your plants? (Im thinking about getting an indoor plastic greenhouse to increase humidity)

It's severely underwatered. Notice the wrinkling on the leaves, as well as pseudobulbs. Every seven days during the growing season is too seldom for most Cattleyas in a home.

Cattleyas mostly grow on trees in their natural habitat. Their roots are exposed to the air, but there is a lot of water during their growing season. Their roots are wet most of the time. This is how they prefer to grow: moist, with air.

People run into trouble in cultivation when the roots are stuck into a pot, then suffocated. This happens when the potting mixture has only small air spaces. The spaces fill up with water after watering, and the plant cannot breathe until the water is absorbed or drained. With very large bark, like your plant has, these spaces cannot fill up with water. A plant in large bark should be watered so the roots don't stay dry for long. That will depend on the temperature and humidity. In large bark, large cinder chunks or large LECA chunks you can water Cattleyas every day during the growing season.

After a few years even large chunk bark breaks down. It fragments into smaller pieces that plug up the air channels. Plants may rot if the grower doesn't notice the air spaces are gone. Most people using bark repot Cattleyas every 2-3 years, about the time the bark is breaking down.

In large chunk bark like your plant, you could water every day. It would be much happier and would grow better.

Have you repotted the plant since you got it? The bark I can see looks fine, but very dry. The roots, too, look very dry. If the rest of the bark in the pot is in that condition, consider watering every day or every other day. For now I would put the plant in a bowl filled with water and let it soak for 3-4 hours. That will help it start getting rehydrated faster.

Most Cattleyas do fine in ambient humidity in a home, unless your'e running a dehumidifier.

It looks as though the light it's receiving is fine. Plants don't need white light. The pink and blue lights usually work fine.

Thank you so much. I will try this method and let you know how it's doing after two weeks. I'll try soaking it for those 3 - 4 hours tomorrow.

PN --- aside from ES's excellent comments, watch out for spraying water on leaves in some indoor or home conditions. If there's not much air movement, it could also lead to some unwanted activity on the leaf - eg bacterial/fungal issues ---- maybe.

Also - make sure to take into account the initial condition of the bark pieces. Very dry bark pieces (super dry) repels water. You can try it out for yourself ..... put a drop of water on top of a super dry bark piece --- and the water drop forms a ball on the surface -- the bark surface remains dry. And that ball of water would just roll straight off the bark surface if you tip the bark piece over.

That's the water running off a duck's back thing.

So if you did use dry bark from the beginning, and if the bark wasn't soaked for a while (not soaking with the orchid roots) to prepare them for later potting of the orchid - then the dry bark issue could possibly be behind the severe dehydration.

Also, some details from these links could be useful to you later on : Click Here and Click Here and Click Here and Click Here and Click Here

:agree::agree:

Listen to seca.........water, water, water.
One point I do respectfully disagree on is light. Give them plenty just shy of cooking the leaves. They will become very light green. It will make them bloom better and likely more frequently (because they're hybrids) but it's not going to do anything until you resolve the dehydration issue.

And when I say "light" I do NOT mean "sun".