welcome back to my channel today's video is going to be about Phalaenopsis and we are going to talk about what causes a Phalaenopsis leaves to either be straight and rigid or droopy and soft so I'm going to try to answer that and give you a few tips and tricks on Phalaenopsis care coming up in this video all right so I'm doing this video to answer a question that one of our viewers had and that was how come well my Phalaenopsis have leaves that are upright instead of floppy all of them are stiff or turbid none of them are going to be hanging you're droopy at all in fact some of them almost go straight up as opposed to falling so I'm going to do my best to answer that question in this video and I'll give you a few tips on how I water and care for my fellow topsis as well so when we look at an orchid Phalaenopsis orchid like this I'm going to pick this one here just one of my favorite orchids I've had it for a while although it's not in bloom right now it is a yellow orchid when it is orchid leaves almost tell a story to them so if an orchid has very droopy leaves it's going to tell me that in the past at some point it has actually been deprived of water that if I was to not water these that leaves it start to droop down and unfortunately once the Phalaenopsis leaf is droopy it never writes itself again it doesn't mean that the plant won't become healthy again but it doesn't mean that the leaf is never going to be stiff and rigid like these leaves here another reason that Phalaenopsis can have droopy leaves is maybe in the past or maybe currently we have problems with the roots so if also near Phalaenopsis leaves start to droop down as opposed to being stiff there could be a problem with the roots themself so they could be rotten damaged and it's definitely if you have droopy leaves on the Phalaenopsis a good idea to unpause it and see why now if you see a Phalaenopsis in a grocery store and it has droopy leaves to it I would probably avoid that one because it has had problems in the past now if you do have a Phalaenopsis with droopy leaves and you correct the conditions that are causing the droop whether it be the lack of water or if you can manage to regrow the roots on it the Phalaenopsis can become quite happy again and will still be a healthy plant and bloom for you and eventually the old droopy leaves will fall off but it takes year after year of not letting them ever get thirsty never letting get dehydrated to keep a plant nice and straight with the leaves and keep them from drooping like like we've been talking about alright so the best way to keep Phalaenopsis leaves from drooping used to make sure the roots are healthy and that means plenty of air to the roots this is a moss in bark mix and I keep it light and fluffy you can see there's a lot of roots on this plant I just turned it around so that's the back of the plant is facing us now but lots of air gets in here the mix is all very light so the roots are going to stay healthy as long as you don't get some pack down the roots do have to breathe okay so now we know the mix has to be nice and airy the roots have to be able to breathe additional holes in the pot will definitely help with the roots getting some air how often geo water is always the next question so I like to water my plants when the mix is just when you can take my finger into the mix and it doesn't feel very wet anymore it's still a little bit damp in there but it's just about time to reward and so when I water I'm just going to thoroughly flood the plant now being this is a greenhouse it can just drip onto the floor if you're doing this in your house I would actually take the orchid over to the kitchen sink and give it a good water so it floods out just like so a lot of my plants have aerial roots as well so I like to give the aerial roots a spray with water this one here has aerial roots here this one here has aerial roots so once the plant is watered you can give these plants another spray with the mister and you'll be able to watch the roots actually turn green a silver or a white root is thirsty a green route is not thirsty so that's another way you can tell with your orchids if you look into the mix and you move the mix around and you can see that this green root here is still damp if all your roots look green you probably don't need to water your orchid so I will just finish up by giving them a quick water like that now unfortunately I can't tell you how often to water watering is going to depend on your environment here in the greenhouse in the summer time I water Phalaenopsis orchids three times a week probably in the winter time I water them once a week if I bring them in the house for display purposes like when they're in bloom like this guy here then I'm going to probably water two to three times a week I'll take them to the sink and give them a good good soaking but we would just want to make sure that the mix down in deep has never goes completely bone dry anyways guys that is a few tips and tricks to water your Phalaenopsis orchid i've also explained in my opinion what causes leaf drop and how you can prevent the droopy leaves and Phalaenopsis one last note to leave you with is some species of Phalaenopsis naturally have droopy leaves so depending on what species you have it may have naturally droopy leaves to start with most of the ones you're going to find in grocery store are hybrids and they should all have straight two leaves like this here nice and rigid leaves anyways guys if you enjoyed this video and you want to see more videos like this please subscribe to my channel thanks for watching