Phal post-mortem...

[Nic100]

I love your optimism!!
Sadly I'm a city dweller, and the nearest thing to a tree is the gate to my back yard - the attached pic is of aforementioned back yard, complete with my friends, Jen and Debs, who might let me mount an orchid on them, but I'm not hopeful.
But thanks for the suggestion! I'll have a think

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

What about that pet shop you got the mopani from?

Don't they sell more than just one piece of mopani?

How about driftwood?

Is the hardware store open? A wood plank?

Firewood without lighter fluid, no?...

Are there any stores open in the UK during the weekends (not being sarcastic, some countries don't have anything open during the weekends save the supermarket)?

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

If it's in the evening where you're at, just place the roots on a piece of wet newspaper until you can get a piece of wood.

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

Do you have a block of pumice...?

[Nic100]

You're right... nothing will be open here now. But newspaper I do have, and needs must and all that...

So now, tell me this... have you any thoughts on where it all went wrong?

[Nic100]

By the way the only thing open is the off-license (liquor store) but I doubt you're suggesting I mount it on a whisky bottle...

[RenéeS]

I'm sorry, but this thread did made me giggle a little (sorry.. it's not because of you killing the phal!)

From the looks of the photo's, it does seem to have 2 or 3 healthy roots left, so maybe, as king of orchid growing has made very clear, it can still be saved!

You write that the plant has endured a few shifts in temperature and then position, maybe that did the trick? Had you just watered it before the temperature dropped so low? Maybe some water left in its crown? It looks very rotten ..

Anyways, good luck on getting this little one back to health! Do hope you succeed in that

[Nic100]

That's ok, Renee, I'm giggling too... if you don't laugh you cry, n'all that.
I didnt' think the crown had been wet when I repotted, but I might have been wrong. Can a Phal rot in the space of a week, do you think? Or maybe I just wasn't paying enough attention when I repotted.
No chance that I did everything right and it was attacked by a flesh-eating bacteria, I suppose?

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

Originally Posted by Nic100

By the way the only thing open is the off-license (liquor store) but I doubt you're suggesting I mount it on a whisky bottle...

At this point, maybe the Phal can use a little whiskey.

Anyways...

I'm not exactly sure what happened it seemed like a lot went wrong.

Well for one thing, I can tell you right off the bat that using unsterilized cutters to cut living portions of the plant is usually not advised. If you're cutting off parts of the plant that was already dead, it's not necessary to sterilize between cuts.

Another thing is I don't recommend burying the crown under the potting media should you decide to grow Phals using pot culture.

Cranking up the heat to above 36 C (I don't know how hot it got in the place where you were growing the Phal, so I'm not going to go too in depth into this topic), is usually not good either. But also allowing the temperature to drop below 16 C is not good as well.

But I think this is the clencher...

You mentioned that this was planted in a pot with loose sphagnum. I think this was it.

[Nic100]

Originally Posted by King_of_orchid_growing:)

At this point, maybe the Phal can use a little whiskey.

But I think this is the clencher...

You mentioned that this was planted in a pot with loose sphagnum. I think this was it.

I think I'll save the whisky for me!
About the sphag - I'll admit it had me worried all along, but I know a lot of people grow successfully in it and Mum was an anxious first-time-chid-owner so I thought I'd save repotting till the flowers faded... it was a tough call!