So I'm notorious for torturing Phals. They're my go-to orchid for a new setup, a mount on something, a terrarium experiment, etc, etc. This poor guy has been one used for experimenting for years...bark, mounted, SH, mounted, sphag, under a mister, mounted, etc. Sometime a ways back, I had it in a 75 gallon terrarium experiment (was really trying to grow maidenhair fern) and it was on a mount. Just window dressing hanging on a branch. Well, my experiment failed. Wasn't paying enough attention, and got a ton of mold in the tank. Gave up on the stupid maidenhair fern (for the bajillionth time) then sort of forgot about the terrarium... whoops.
When finally I remembered it was in there it had no leaves. Nada. A completely dried up crown. Figured it had finally met its demise. I pried it off the mount and threw it onto a tall vase with water at bottom, after soaking in KelpMax. It started to push out some roots, so I transferred it back to SH. When it finally pushed out leaves, I got twins! I told it, no more experiments for you, just have a happy life now. Here it is about a year or so later, after I relegated it to a shelf.
So I picked it up to look at it, and check out this root system...
And here's the other side, that was hidden from view...
All those roots are from last fall to the present. Now I'm wondering... I promised it I'd leave it be. But doesn't it appear to be crying out for a mount again?
, you could put the whole thing into an empty pot of suitable size (maybe 1 gallon) to provide an air space for the roots to get some humidity and stay out of the way but be otherwise free to go where they will.
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