Sphag-n-Baggin’ Again

Since I posted about my dying orchid three days ago, it has gone downhill even more. After removing the dead leaves and rotten roots the other day, I was left with two big leaves, one small leaf, and a tiny stump of a root which looked like it was already beginning to rot.

I repotted the plant but one of the big leaves started yellowing pretty quickly so I decided to remove the leaf, as well as the whole root base which looked like it was rotting. So I was left with…not much. No roots at all. Not even much of a plant stem. Time for a sphag-n-bag attempt!

Part of the sphag-n-bag method involves soaking the plant in rooting hormone to help encourage growth. I don’t have rooting hormone on hand so I placed an order for Superthrive, but I didn’t know if it would even arrive quickly enough to help this plant.

Wondering whether there were any homemade rooting hormone recipes on teh internets, I did a bit of Googling and discovered that some people use honey as a rooting hormone. I figured, what the hell, I may as well give it a shot because—let’s be honest—at this point my poor orchid plant is basically an experiment in “how long can I keep it alive”. So I followed a quick honey rooting hormone recipe found at GardenGal.net and combined 1/4 cup of honey with 3/4 cup boiling water. Once the mixture had cooled, I dipped the cut end of my plant in it and then sphagged-n-bagged the plant like so:

I have no clue if it’s even possible to get this sliver of a plant to grow roots at this point because it is WAY far gone. But hey, it’s worth a shot, right? Like I said, it’s a bit of an experiment. And my Superthrive has shipped, so if the plant can hang on till the stuff arrives I will try soaking the plant in it. SO, we shall see. Stay tuned…