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Purple Orchid Leaves: 9 Causes & Solutions
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Oct 3, 2024
Purple Orchid Leaves? 9 Causes & Solutions In nature, leaves turn colors in autumn, most fall off during winter, and some remain evergreen. This change in leaf color is truly beautiful to watch—except when it’s with your orchid. When orchid leaves change color, they are warning you that something is not quite right. And purple? What could be more alarming than purple orchid leaves? Other colors, like brown, black, yellow, and white require immediate attention. Reasons For Purple Spots on Orchid Leaves Too much Direct Sunlight Overheating Nutrient Deficiency Inadequate Fertilization Dormancy, or Winter Blues Cold Temperatures Pests & Insects Drought Stress Varying Species in the Same Genus If you want the full explanation of this video in writing, please go to https://orchideria.com/purple-orchid-leaves/ The website offers many other tutorials and answers lots of other questions, so be sure to check it out at Orchideria.com. On that website, you'll have all the access to our information, tutorials, guides, and much more... all for free!
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0:00
Autumn is such an amazing season because it has all these wonderful colors in nature
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All the leaves are starting to turn colors with the red and the yellow and the deep brown colors
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But when it comes to an orchid and the leaf starts turning purple, what happened
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Hi, I'm Amanda Matthews and thank you for watching this video at Orcadaria
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Purple leaves are fascinating on other plants. Not on orchids. So some plants do have a natural coloring to become red or purple just like this one
0:52
The terrarium plant. There are several reasons that orchids can have purple leaves and I'll show you on this
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one right here. See the underside of that leaf is turning purple. Let's see exactly why that's
1:10
happening. If you're in a hurry and you want to know the reasons right now, I'll give you the
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summary up front and then I'll go into more detail on each one of those. So too much direct
1:21
sunlight, overheating, nutrient deficiency, inadequate fertilization, dormancy or winter blues, cold temperatures, pest and insects, drought stress, or varying, varying species within the same genus
1:40
Now before I actually go into what is causing the purple leaf, if your root system is decaying
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if you have brown mushy roots and they are all molded and they're dying off, then purple leaves are
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the least of your concerns. First go back and fix your roots
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system and then we'll work on healthy leaves because you can fix a bad leaf but if it doesn't
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have if the orchid doesn't have good roots it's to no avail let's look at what the last reason that
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I cited because it's not a concern and we can get it out of the way if your flower is purple
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and that pigment inside the blossom it can travel to the flower stem or the pidon
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and the pedicle too and it can go all the way down to the leaves and these leaves can
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present a purplish tone to them so if you have purple flowers or dark dark pink or even red
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flowers on your orchids they can produce this natural coloring and you have nothing to worry about
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the other reasons on here you need to worry about and the first one which automatically comes to our
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mind is too much direct light. If you have your orchid and the leaves are turning purple on it
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and you will see this on the underside of the leaf, it's never been exposed to that much light
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before. This is a natural sunscreen that the orchid produces, and that's these freckles on here
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are the orchid way of saying hey I like this light It a little too much for me but I can thrive in it I still will survive and I well I just produce this sunscreen and I will turn a little purple I fine
3:36
It's actually a anthocyanin, which is an antioxidant also, that produces this color
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This can happen if you have an orchid shelf or if you put your orchid on the window and it always gets sun from this side
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Then you water it and put it back on the shelf on this side. Well, this side of the orchid is not accustomed to receiving that light and it can go purple on you
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So you're still good. You're still providing the adequate amount of light
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It's not stressing your orchid yet and you can keep your orchid in those conditions
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This is not a problem to be concerned about. What you need to be concerned is overheating, and that is the third reason
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When your orchids get the right amount of light, but it's too hot, that light that's coming in
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maybe it's an afternoon sun, or maybe you have sun that gets too much exposure, and the leaf is hot to the touch
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your leaf is getting heat damage or heat stress. So those purple spots which will be bigger and darker than the normal actual too much light spots
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they will react differently and they will, if not treated, they will harm your orchid
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So you need to move that orchid back to a place where it doesn't get that much sun
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So let's say you got your orchid. You know that you are providing too much heat for it
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then you all of a sudden put it outside in a cold wind or a temperature that is under the adequate
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for what it wants. For some reason, the orchid reacts by also producing more purple spots on your leaf
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The leaf will turn a darker hinged purple that the temperature is off. It's too cold for your orchid
5:43
So it can be on both extremes. Either your temperature is too high. high or your temperature's too low. Now this other reason is really funny because I kind of relate to
5:54
it. It's winter blues. Who said an orchid would actually have that? But they do, but not in those
6:01
terms, of course. What happens is during winter, they'll have less access to sunlight. If they don't
6:07
have that much sunlight, they won't need to produce that much chlorophyll. And with less chlorophyll production
6:15
Sometimes the leaf can go yellow as it would in a cateleo orchid
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But in other orchids, when it doesn't have that much chlorophyll, the leaf will produce this reddish purple tinge to it
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And that's just a sign that it's not getting enough chlorophyll or it doesn't have enough chlorophyll because it doesn't need it
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This can happen if your orchid has a dormancy cycle. Phalanopsis orchids do not have a dormancy cycle
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they do not need that breast after they bloom They will they are prolific bloomers They will bloom one right after the other after the other If you don cut off that spike or if you just cut it off so you can induce more blooms It will be blooming all year round
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Other orchids like the cadetum orchid has an extremely long dormancy period. A dendrobium also has a dormancy period where these leaves will actually fall off. So they're going to turn a little purple. And that's just because the chlorophyll in them is
7:19
slowly dying off or because they don't need them. It's during their winter dormancy cycle
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The next reason is extremely concerning and it's more concerning than all the others that I've
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cited here. It's because if your root system is bad, if you have roots that are just dying and decaying
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inside that pot, then you will not, your orchid will not turn purply red, but what it will
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do is turn a reddish brown. that just means your leaf is starting to die now. So it's an extreme sign of, hey, I need help
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fix me, do something, get me out of this potting media, do something to my roots. And it's usually
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because of two things. Overwatering and not the right medium because there's not enough
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air circulation inside there. So fix that first because your leaves will start to turn this reddish more
8:18
toward a brownish red, more brown than red, but it still is in the purple category. So that is
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very concerning. A healthy orchid is one that has healthy roots. Always keep your roots healthy
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Then you'll have a beautiful orchid all year around. This next example is also an inversion of one
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that I said before. We immediately relate purple leaves too much light. Well, that's if you have
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have a low light orchid like a phalanopsis. They are low light. They are 1,000 to 1,200, 300
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foot candles of light. Now let's take the opposite of that. Let's say you have an extremely
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high light orchid, like a vanda. And you take this vanda and you put it in a place where it doesn't
9:07
get light. Insufficient lighting will cause the leaves to purple. So why does this happen
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You have a highlight orchid. It's accustomed to receiving all the leaves
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all this light and all of a sudden it's hit away in this dark corner of the house, poor thing
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To survive, this orchid is going to need to transform every single light ray that it gets into energy
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So it's going to maximize the chlorophyll it has in its leaves
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So these leaves are going to turn an extremely dark green to be able to, hey, it's sunlight, I've got it, it's my
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That darker green can have some hinges. of some tones of red in them, some tones of dark purple in them. It's just a darker green
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that this orchid is struggling to survive. So you can have both ends. Too much light and not
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enough light which will produce these purply red hues in your orchid leaf. Sometimes your
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light is right Your watering is right Your roots Your roots are good your temperature okay it just your fertilization that off Yeah I know orchid care has a lot of steps But once you get them it easy So hang in there
10:32
If you notice that your orchid is not, they're not a freckley type spots on your leaf. It's just a
10:40
hue and an overall tone of your whole orchid. Upgrade. your fertilization just a tad bit, tad, tad, tad bit. I'm talking little tiny bits. Overfertilizing
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kills more than under fertilizing. So it might be all this nutrient deficiency that you haven't
11:02
been fertilizing the way you should. These reddish tones can appear in your orchid. Another problem
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that will cause the whole leaf to redden is if you've just repotted your orchid and you had
11:16
horrible root system. You had to cut off a lot of roots and your orchid really felt it. Your orchid
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sense that it had to be held with drastically. It didn't like all those changes that it went through
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and it's going to hate its potting media. It's going to hate all the care that you gave it for
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this repot even though it's for the best of your orchid. It will show you that and that is
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through the reddening of the leaf. So if you just repotted, you had to cut off a lot of the roots
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That could be a sign. And it's not one that you really need to worry about
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It's just your orchids showing that it's stressed and it went through a hard time
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But it will come out of that better in the long run. It's kind of like raising adolescents
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You know, you got to deal with them hard and then, you know, it's for the best in the future
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So these are all the signs that could be showing that your orchid has purple leaves
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You need to go through one by one and always start with the roots
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And the orchid with healthy roots will grow much better than one that is struggling with bad root system
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So start there. Then look at your lighting, then look at your fertilizer, and go through each one of those steps to see
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what's causing these red leaves because it's not normal unless it is your natural coloring of the orchid
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If this video provided any value, please hit the like button because that just tells me what videos work and what videos don't work
13:02
And continue your orchid care. Please do not stop researching information. Knowledge is out there. We just have to go out and get it
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So I want to suggest two videos. The first one you can watch up here is about orchid temperatures
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And on that one at the end, I'll direct you to a place where you can download a free PDF
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of one page which is a summary of all the temperatures that you'll need to know
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And the second one, I talk about 33 different types of low-light orchids
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And I go into detail with just three because 33 would be too much
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Thank you for watching this video. I hope to see you in the comments below and happy cultivating
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