These are just a few of the 30 I now have including six minis. I'm posting these because there are so many nice (in my opinion) roots coming out of them even though the plant itself may not look the best. If anyone has any comments or suggestions just let me know by picture number. FWIW I've been watering now weekly with RO water and 1/2 tsp of MSU and misting between once and twice a day with a mixture of 1/4tsp of UltraClean and 1/4tsp of Epson Salts to 1gal of RO water.

Yup..Chris, your roots that I can see look super...great job! Good roots will support more leaves and then next fall we will be looking for spikes. I noticed the cinnamon on a couple of your photos...I've read..and can't confirm, that while cinnamon is a great anti fungal..it apparently also inhibits root growth..So now I have my cinnamon in a squirt bottle ( like ketchup and mustard) and can just put a bit where I need it...or I'll use a Q tip and daub a bit where it's needed.

Thanks Lindsey, great idea about the cinnamon. I'll have to make a note of that. I've just been shaking it out of the container.

Looking fabulous Chris! Great job!

Haven't heard that about the cinnamon, Lindsey, but good to know. I have read that if you mix the cinnamon with some Ehlmers white glue you can 'paint' it on where you need it and it will stay put instead of getting washed away so easily.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Happy New Year to you too Patty. The glue sounds like a good idea but I wonder if the glue would prevent new growth if it got spread out too far?

I don't think the glue would stay forever, Chris, it's pretty water soluble. I imagine it would just last longer than the cinnamon by itself but would still wash away over time.

The man who gives our 'horticultural classes' at the beginning of our Orchid Society meetings is the one who recommended this method.

Personally I'm lucky if I can FIND the cinnamon when I'm cutting things off my orchid plants!

I keep a zip lock bag out by the orchids filled with cinnamon and I keep a solder flux brush in the bag with it. They are cheap and I use them for glue ups on woodworking projects.

You're SO organized Ted!

I like to pretend I'm organized too, and I sorta am....its just actually USING the stuff I have in all my little baggies where the problem usually starts!

I have 3 different sprayers too, they are neatly marked, "roundup", "orchid fertilizer" and "orchid chemicals"...they decorate a corner of my living room, right next to the box that houses all my fertilizers, and other bags & bottles of orchid chemicals. I generally have to dust everything off when I get around to USING any of them...but they are well-organized!

Patty, I'll have to give the glue a try then on one of my cactus that had been eaten on a bit. I've got my cinnamon in a squeeze bottle now and a gal jug with my UltraClean and Epson Salts mixture. I mix my MSU as I need it. That's all I need for my Phals.

Hmmm... Glue on a cactus wound may not be a good idea. I'm not sure I would even use cinnamon. Cactus wounds heal fine with air circulation - you may be better off pointing a fan at your cactus.

Thanks Daisy, I haven't tried the glue method yet anyway but I did put a little cinnamon on it.

More Keikis developing on the same spike as the other two.

Looks fantastic, Chris. Nice fat roots coming along there, too.

That pink tinge to the leaves might be indicating a need for a bit more Epsom Salts in your spray regime. Some Phals do have pink or purplish reverses to the leaves as well, so it may not be that, but it won't hurt.

Thanks Elaine, I'm using 1/2tsp of UltraClean and 1/2tsp of Epson Salts to 1gal of RO Water. Think I should change the Epson Salts to 3/4tsp next batch I mix up?

Or maybe just give that one a one-time dunk - maybe 10 minutes - in a bowl of water with a tsp. of Epsom Salts in it. When I had one showing a lot of red like that it only took one bath for it to start greening up again.

That's on my 'To do ' list for tomorrow as well...I sprayed everyone with Bayer 3 in 1 before I left for Miami on Thursday and I see today a bunch of burgundy leaves.

I'll give that a try Elaine. Actually I'm wondering also if the difference in light and shorter days are contributing to this as a few more are showing the reddish leaves. Maybe I'll just soak all of them. Immerse the whole plant or just soak the roots?

Well if you're spraying the leaves anyway, just soaking the roots should be fine. But no harm if you splash some on the leaves too . . no hard and fast rules here.

Tomorrow's my day to spray everybody with UltraClean and Epsom salts, too.

I've been doing mine lightly daily, too much? They're still getting watered weekly with 1/2tsp of MSU per gal of RO water.

If you're seeing red on the leaves that wasn't there before, I'd say keep it up and maybe boost the dose a bit, too. A red flush is an indication of magnesium deficiency - magnesium is needed for a plant to make chlorophyll, the green stuff in the leaves.

Probably the plants are metabolizing more slowly due to lower temperatures, so that may be why the magnesium isn't getting absorbed enough. It was extra cold last week too, right? Just guessing here.

I'm just lazy, and my orchids are on an automatic mist system so I don't have to spray anything daily. Once a week is what they get around here, although the mounted orchids and Vandas get watered by the auto-mist every day.