IRENE ADLER
I had wanted an all white orchid for a while, and on March 5, my local HEB had some on sale! So I selected one, brought her home and named her Irene Adler. The goal for Irene was to let her stay in the orchid media in which I purchased her for as long as possible to reduce stress on her. Six days later, her leaves were softening and I was beginning to see the tell-tale wrinkles caused by dehydration. Experience is teaching me that orchids from the grocery store are not bred to live for years. Instead, they are bred to create more flowers, despite the limitations of the plant. It’s kind of like a puppy mill but with flowers
Sure enough, when I removed the media, many of her roots were soft and mushy with the velamen sliding off. She also still had her nursery/seedling plug. Had I left her in her original pot and media, she would have surely died. No wonder people think orchids are hard to grow! One of my friends said that she just throws them away once the blooms are gone.
I cleaned the bits of moss and bark from the roots and slid the velamen off of the mushy roots. I then put her in a jar with some glass beads in the bottom to keep her thick roots out of water and left her for 24 hours to dry. I then added water with Super Thrive for 24 hours. After that, I lowered the water level to the top of the glass beads which provided the longest roots and string roots with water. I would continue this process with once per week soakings followed by low water/dry days.
NOTE: String roots can absorb about 10% of what a regular root can. It isn’t much, but it’s better than nothing.
my Plants 
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