Anyone tried Miracle-Gro Orchid Mix?

[christinalkc]

MY DH bought me this beautiful Dendrobium last August with these gorgeous pink flowers. After about a month, the flowers started to fall off and never bloomed again :sad:

Then, one of the leaves started to turn yellow and had one black spot in the middle, while the other 10 leaves were nice and green. I was doing a search and found that one of the reasons for the yellow and black leaves is rotting roots. So, I look at the roots and some of them were brown indicating rot I think. :shrug7:

I decided to change the potting medium (sphagnum moss) and got a bag of Miracle-Gro Orchid Mix at Walmart last night. To my surprise, the orchid mix seemed like a regular potting mix, just a little coarse. I read the label and it says that it's suitable for most orchids. Anyways, today I remove my orchid from the pot and trimmed all the brown roots and kept the green and white ones and repotted it with the new Miracle-Gro orchid mix. I hope it works.

Anyone has any experience with this Miracle-Gro thing? Or if anyone has any advice about my poor orchid. My DH said it's a loss cause but I really want to save it. :sad:

Thanks.... Cheers..

[SavnInIL]

I have an orchid too and I have used the miracle grow orchid mix. The only problem I had with the mix is that the plant was top heavy and would pull out of the soil because it was too course to pack down. My orchid was dying like yours and so I too cut the roots back. Well that didn't leave many roots and so the 5 leaves on top made the plant lopsided. Anyway...that was in June and the plant is recovering nicely. I have read on the internet that when the plant develops enough roots and conditions are right it will flower again. Don't give on it! Pot it with the orchid mix and keep it warm and in a sunny spot. Orchids are very delicate and don't take well to changes. My dad runs a greenhouse and in 15 years or so of raising orchids he never had a time when he was happy. The plants are too touchy he says. Good luck!

[christinalkc]

OOohh... thank you so much for getting back. I realized that Miracle-Gro is not suitable for my Dendrobiums so I had to take it back and bought Better-Gro instead. I repotted it again with the new medium and poked a few more holes on the side of the pot. I hope this time it has better circulation and grow grow grow! :)

And you are right, patience is the key!!

Thank you so much!! Cheers..

[Rene S]

I'm an orchid "newbie" but have read a lot about them. They *need* high humidity. You can take a try and put some stones on it, add some water and place the pot on top of that. Also, they need a lots of bright light (but not a lot of sunlight).