Root Rot in Phalaenopsis Needed repotting

[Wynn Dee13]

It's not surprising your plant put out a spike. Many Phals will spike when they think they are going to die to have one more chance at producing offspring. You need to cut the spike off if you want the plant to live. Blooming takes a lot of energy and if you let it grow the spike it will put all it's energy into that and then die. You want to make the plant put that energy into roots and new leaves.

That might of been the reason the plant bloomed before even though it had rotted roots. Phals will spike from stress too. I'm not saying every spike was from stress but the last one before you found the root rot could of been from that.

I have never tried water culture but from what I have read it works for a while but isn't good for long term growing. If you use the water culture to grow some new roots you could then transfer it to semi-hydro. That seems to work for some people.