Paph haynaldianum no good roots

[Setter]

I just received this orchid from Hauserman ‘s. It has no viable roots. What should I do?

[estación seca]

Paph roots are brown and fuzzy. They don't look like other orchid roots. I think your plant probably had adequate roots; they don't look that good with bad roots. If you cut off roots you may have cut off the good roots.

[Setter]

Please don’t take my reply wrong. I’ve been growing Paph orchids for a while and I know what their roots look like. I didn’t cut off any roots. They literally fell off as I was cleaning the old media. This is about my seventh order from Hausermans and I’ve never received anything like this. Of course I will send a picture to them and inform them but in the mean time would it just be better to plant in some moss and see if I could get some roots going?

[SouthPark]

setter ----- did that orchid arrive by mail?

And is it growing in the original pot and original medium?

And how long has it been since you first purchased it?

Also ----- judging from the very good leaves and size of it ......... the roots must have been fine before that, because a plant won't have so many nice leaves like that without functioning roots.

At the moment - hard to say what happened. Should contact the orchid nursery to see what their recommendation is. I think contacting them right away for a chat to get recommendations is the right move for now.

[Setter]

I received the orchid Wednesday night FedEx. This is Friday morning and I didn’t like the looks of the medium. It was completely broken down. So I knew it needed a re-pot in fresh medium.

[SouthPark]

If the roots are all gone, then something like this or equivalent --- may be needed for ICU life support ----- link - humidity tub

[Setter]

I have a terrarium that I can put it in. Would you plant it in a pot with Spagnum moss to encourage growth?

[SouthPark]

Originally Posted by Setter

I have a terrarium that I can put it in. Would you plant it in a pot with Spagnum moss to encourage growth?

setter ----- for the moment - if the roots died due to being water-logged, if I had to set up something for recovery ----- I would pop my plant into a pot of my own medium of choice ----- maybe I would use roughly 8 mm average diameter scoria. And I would probably choose a wide pot, and then water heavily the scoria in the region toward the rim of the pot. And then just lightly spray the media closer-in toward the plant with some water ----- to simply dampen the media a little toward the middle of the pot.

Then pop into the humidifier tub ---- ensuring temperature does not become too cold --- to avoid fungal growth etc ...... and I would also pop 1 or 2 small DC fans inside for some gentle air-movement. And I would put some sphagnum outside of the pot ...... inside the tub, but not touching the orchid. To help maintain some nice humidity.

[Setter]

Thank you so much!

[Ray]

@Setter

1) Soak the entire plant for several hours in a gallon of water containing a tablespoon of KelpMax.

2) Pot it up and follow Southpark’s advice.

3) Complain to Hausermann’s. You should either get your money back or a replacement plant with a decent root system.

We - retail orchid purchasers - cannot let vendors get away with that. Vendors have to feel the pain of their poor culture, so they will learn to do better.

I do not mean this in an unfriendly way - Hell! We’ve all done that to our own plants - but the vendor should know about it and make amends.

Back when I sold plants, I unknowingly shipped such a plant on (fortunately) rare occasion, and when notified, immediately apologized, refunded the full cost or sent a replacement, sometimes both. I hated shipping such a plant worse than getting one that way!