Ursula, last winter I ordered a bunch of "baby" orchids, and 20 of them was a dendrobium variety, a compact Dtps. These were plug plants. Not a single one of these plants had any viable roots, none whatsoever. They were not "mushy" dead, just completely dried up and brittle dead. I contacted the grower and they recommended I remove all the plants from the fir bark media (2 1/2" mesh-pots) and just put them all in a large "community" mesh pot, without any media. The grower was certain they would regrow roots going into their growing season. He said this was a common trait among many dendrobium, particularly when they are still baby plants. I did as instructed and sure enough, 18 out of the 20 did grow roots and are doing well. Another oddity about some of the dendrobium varieties (Dtps. in particular) is that they drop every leaf when dormant. All that's left are "nude" canes. Then they regrow those leaves when their growing season begins. This only seems to occur with my baby plants. None of my mature dendrobium lose leaves, at least not the handful I have. Since I am not much into dendrobium plants I don't know if what I have seen is commonly seen by others.
