boothbay schrieb:
I bought thid beautiful orchid ( Phalaenopsis ) with about six buds and
3 already opened. The culture that came with it said to fertilize once a
month. A knowledgeable friend said he does his at every watering and had
no problems. Of course I forgot to ask what strength. I have 15-30-15
and 20-20-20. would too much fertilizer kill it? BTW, i read in this
group some people mentioning "sheath". What is a sheath?

A sheath is the "envelope" in the leaf axil that protects the buds of
orchids as they are developing like on members of the Cattleyas. (Can
anyone tell me if other orchids have them too?.)

A sheath can form and turn brown and papery, and just when you think it
is time to cut the ugly thing off, you will notice buds growing inside,
hopefully before the cutting occurs. (Speaking from bad experience :-( )
A sheath can also produce buds while it is still green, it can also
*never* produce buds, if the conditions are not right for the plant.
Hope this helped.

Someone more knowledgeable will answer the fert question, I hope, but if
you use the PPM calculator on Ray's page that Pat is asking about, it
will also help you. I fertilize at every watering as well, and the
usual recommendation is "weakly, weekly" or half-strength at every watering.


--
Reka

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