Rlc Hsinying Grand Catherine with no roots

[cluelessmidwesterner]

Hey all,

Last month I purchased a Rlc Hysinying Grand Catherine that was in bloom. It need a repot but I waited for the flowers to drop and also for the plant to adjust to my environment. I know that was dumb. Yesterday I removed it from its pot and it had no live roots. They were not rotten just dried papery non viable roots. It does have a new growth starting to swell on the lead pbulb.

My question is how should I "baby" this plant along until it starts putting out new roots? Pot it up as usual just wired into the pot? Place the plant in a spag and bag situation like situation until roots start?

[Ray]

This is my "go-to" method:

Rescue Plants with No Roots

[aliceinwl]

I used Ray’s method with two nearly rootless Cattleya types I bought last year: both made full recoveries and rebloomed this spring.

[SouthPark]

Originally Posted by cluelessmidwesterner

They were not rotten just dried papery non viable roots.

All the best - sounds like there's chances of recovery.

Are all roots like described? Dried and non-viable?

Just assuming this is a case of the orchid not being watered for a while.

[cluelessmidwesterner]

Originally Posted by SouthPark

All the best - sounds like there's chances of recovery.

Are all roots like described? Dried and non-viable?

Just assuming this is a case of the orchid not being watered for a while.

About 99.5% of the roots were dried and non-viable. Most of the roots this plant had were air roots and I think dried out because of the change in environment from the greenhouse, to the vendor (local orchid society flowers sale) and finally to me. There were no roots in the media to speak of. The roots it had were wrapped around the top of the pot. There are one or two old tired stumpy partial roots that I left which had a little substance. Hopefully these can bring in a little hydration until the plant can kick start growth.

[Leafmite]

With new growth, and the summer growing season ahead, you have no reason to worry. Just stake/wire the orchid on top of whatever medium that you wish to use so that it cannot wiggle and keep it somewhere humid and it will soon send roots down into the medium. I use red lava rock so I try not to move the orchids very much until the roots have gone well into the medium as the rock is rather sharp but any other medium probably doesn't have this issue.