Thank you Arthur for explaining your growing conditions and 'hard-canes.' I have absolutely no room for them, that is the reason they get tossed on a corner, left dry and ignored until Spring. They are tall, but you can get away with stuffing them in small pots. Howard - Southern Exposure?? OMG! Before I knew anything 'formal' about growing orchids, I always had dens. Some nobiles, but mostly hard-canes. Rarely got the nobiles to flower (some hybrids did), but they grew and grew. Hard-canes stopped growing after flowering and I assumed they went dormant. So I put them away until I saw sign of life. They rarely got watered (which I know goes against the rules). I do not put them under lights because they are too tall. They have few leaves and because of this don't require strong light. They are potted in rock or Aussie and maybe given a bit of water once a month. They are bone dry. They couldn't rot if they tried. They could dry up (that's happened) but if I notice any major shriveling, I give them some water - not much. I keep the nobiles in the window, but the hard-canes are in a North corner, not by a window. But my room is bright. I don't have room for them in winter. I have too many high light orchids which need the windows and lamps. They don't seem to grow any differently with or without light...they don't grow over winter! Plus, they are ugly sticks and I hide them until spring. I think the big mistake is treating them as if they are growing. Just leave them be and they will wake up when the time is right. Its the care they receive over summer that determines the amount of spikes. These plants are tough but so magnificent when they bloom well. If you get it right, you will have more flowers than any other orchid you could grow. They become giant bushes of flowers. I love them. Jane

Hello Brooke, When I suggested to Larissa if she uses a Ziploc that she not use any potting medium because she is fighting scales. If you have an orchid that has no roots you also dont need a potting medium. Here are some pictures of small paphs growths that broke off during potting that I ziplocked. This is the paph pictured in the bag above. You can see the new root growth just where the brown meets the green. There is a similar new root on the other side. This is after two weeks. This is another paph broken off during repotting. Root after about a month in a ziplock bag. There is a new leaf also growing from the apex, but you canÂt see it in this photo. When the roots get about an inch I will pot them up in bark, continue zip locking until the roots get well established in the medium. You can use sphag but it breaks down very quickly in this environment. What is happening is that the Ziplock bag is air tight, so the little bit of moisture that is in the bag stays in the bag creating 100% humidity. You donÂt need medium to hold the moisture. The bag contains it. Moisture travels into the cells that are desiccated. When you blow into the bag you raise the CO2 level up slightly in the bag helping with the plants carbon fixing. This helps in creating new growth. I admit not to do any experiment to prove this against not breathing in the bag and just filling the bag with air, but I feel reasonably assured that that is what is happening based on my experience and knowledge. I assume this bag would be out of any direct sunlight during recuperation? Yes. Whenever any person, animal or plant is recuperating the less stress the better. The bag method does not guarantee that a unhealthy orchid will recover. Some are headed south no matter what you do. Hello Sheila, How long in the baggie is 'a long time'? a week, a month? Once a orchid has fully recovered or reestablished roots into a medium you can take it out of the bag. I once did an experiment where I had a paph that had no roots. I bagged it grew the roots, potted it, put it back into the bag, and grew it for about three years in the bag. I wanted to see how long I could grow it in the bag after three years I decided it could go for as long as one wanted. One caveat was it didnÂt flower in the bag. During the three years I would add water from time to time, once the roots were established a little water with fertilizer. The roots grew well even outside the pot and you could see the fuzzy root hairs found on paphs. There were a few growths and a strong root system when I took it out of the bag and flowered it. I either gave it away or sold it. I thought I had pictures of it, but canÂt find them now. 'Every now & then opening the bag', same question, once a day, couple times week??? Once a week usually but I admit to be lacs-a-dasial about it. I would sometime blow up the bags whenever they looked like they were going down. If you blow into them more regularly you will probably have better results. Incidentally, I also use this trick if I am going on vacation, and some orchids need to be watered during the time I am not there. I havenÂt lost any healthy orchids

Thanks for the reply. It does look like a calcium or magnesium deficiency, which if it is, is not likely due to lack of the nutrients but an uptake issue as you said (I use epsom salts foliar and bone meal in the soil). Does epsom salt increase soil salinity over time? The location is near the ocean and salt build up is a concern. Also, can high soil salinity effect nutrient uptake, like a mineral or ph level imbalance can? I don't believe it is a calcium deficiency though because I am not experiencing BER. The bottom (flower end) is not soft/mushy/rotten but tough and scarred like in the pictures above. Thrips and some spider mite damage may be at play, but again this seems unlike to be the problem since only new leaf growth is effected (maybe I'm wrong here, perhaps the pest are only attacking the young shoots first). It seems the most important, stand alone issue is trying to understand what is causing those dead ends and flowers to fall off, this is an issue I am having trouble explaining with any of the pest or nutrient issues we just discussed. Thanks for the input! I still haven't figured it out and need all the help i can get

Why are new leaves on my strelitzia partly wrinkled/bumpy? It's happened on 2 of 3 new leaves from the summer. They have not gone away at all with time. I don't see any pests except some fungus gnats. What do you think this could be?