Please oh please do not water your orchids with ice. It’s...
Please oh please do not water your orchids with ice. It’s so bad for them. It burns the roots! #orchids #PhalaenopsisOrchid
3
@onemoreplant I’ve transitioned my orchids to semi water culture but that’s what works for me. I have one orchid in orchid bark. She gets watered with a good soaking every 2-3 weeks, depending on the condition of the plant. Once she finishes blooming I’ll transition her too.
@TrueAchiote14 orchids cannot survive in water culture… you are going to kill your orchid, and its roots already look in very bad shape (its roots all appear to have bacterial rot and multiple lower leaves appear limp). They are epiphytes and they are heavily reliant on a delicate fungal ecosystem to fight pathogens and process nutrients properly; YouTube is full of people who raved about going semi-hydro/leca, and 1-2 years later they make a video about how they suddenly lost 20-50% of their collection in semi-hydro/leca with no warning signs (because their orchids were not in the kind of biologically supportive ecosystem they need to survive long-term). Healthy orchid roots are bright green when saturated with water (picture below). Your orchid will need to sit on a bed of sphagnum moss in a tall, open air container or bag for a few months if you want it to live.
I don’t water my orchids with ice, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with it as long as you don’t leave the ice resting on the roots or against leaves. There has been actual research debunking the ice harm myth, and with the physics of thermodynamics an ice cube or two in a room temp environment has a negligible impact on its surroundings. The water temperature thing is also a myth, I water my tropical species orchids with water fresh from my refrigerator all the time. If your orchid got into its current state while you were watering it with ice, the problem was it getting too much water too frequently so it started rotting in its medium.
I don’t water my orchids with ice, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with it as long as you don’t leave the ice resting on the roots or against leaves. There has been actual research debunking the ice harm myth, and with the physics of thermodynamics an ice cube or two in a room temp environment has a negligible impact on its surroundings. The water temperature thing is also a myth, I water my tropical species orchids with water fresh from my refrigerator all the time. If your orchid got into its current state while you were watering it with ice, the problem was it getting too much water too frequently so it started rotting in its medium.
