This plant has been in my collection for about a year and a half now. I got it from Wal-Mart of all places, and was shocked to see it had a tag with a name. It was partly why I grabbed it, it also helped that the flowers were a yellow-green.
When I brought it home it had almost two dozen blooms on it, all on branching spikes. It was potted in a coarse bark mix that had seen better days. I had to wait a couple weeks before repotting it because I didn’t have any bark mix.
Phal Golden Sun, just purchased
Once I unpotted it, I discovered it’s roots were in sad shape. I expected as much, so I cut the dead roots away, rinsed it all off, and let it air dry for a couple hours. It is now potted in the same pot in a nice bark mix with charcoal and perlite and some added clay pellets.
Because I didn’t have a smaller pot for it, I used the same one it came in. So I added more clay pellets to fill up the lower half of the pot. It grew some new roots, but was fairly slow growing. It put out this most recent spike, and I was tempted to cut it right away, but I let it go for a bit.
The plant tried to branch the spike out, but didn’t have the energy to produce blooms on the side-spikes. I got 5 beautiful blooms out of it though. I sent it to a show, where is won a third place in it’s group. Once it came back, I cut the spike and let the plant go back into grow mode.
Phal Golden Sun
It is now growing a new leaf, and several new root tips as roots begin to branch off the existing ones. It will take some time for this little guy to get his strength back, but I’m sure it will continue to give me a beautiful show when blooming.
This plant gets it’s light from artificial lights, the leaves have a nice purple blush to them. It is potted in a clear plastic pot, and sits in a decorative pot for stability. It gets room temperature, and humidity around 50-60%. I water it weekly with a weak fertilizer solution, with monthly seaweed treatments.
Rebecca's Orchids 