I posted a thread about my Phalaenopsis recently with concern about its offshoot with buds because the original spike was dying away, so I wanted to know if the buds would bloom or just drop. Well I decided to go ahead and repot it in a fir bark/sphagnum moss mix (it has been in the same sphagnum moss it came with when I got it just over a year ago) and during the process, I noticed MOST of its roots rotted/died.
I went ahead and cut them all away using sterilized sharp scissors (did not put cinnamon on the cut areas) and potted it up. The spike started drying past the offshoot, so I just cut it off (it makes me sad that I won't see it bloom for a while) and topped that cut with ground cinnamon, hoping this would help the plant focus its energy on rebuilding a healthy root system.
Remembering the condition of the roots and stem kept bothering me, so I decided to take it back out and take pictures of it to post up here for some help. I then cut away as much of the black and all the parts I didn't cut last time, tried to pick as much of the dead remains of leaf that were still on it, removed it's lowest leaf (leaves are all not as stiff as they should be, but this one was a little worse than the others; the top baby leaf is as stiff as it should be) to the fullest extent I could without harming the actual stem (doing this revealed a root that was growing but didn't make it past the leaf I removed), washed the roots with room temperature water, and proceeded to take pictures of them which can be viewed at the link provided at the bottom of this post. After taking the pictures, I sprinkled ground cinnamon on all the areas I cut, and potted it back up in the same potting medium.
What concerns me is that the roots are alive are only near the bottom of the stem and two aerial roots near the leaves. All the area in between has so much black that I couldn't remove without fearing I'd harm the stem of the plant, and all the roots that were there died away... Is this normal? What can I do to improve the condition of my orchid?
Also, I have a close-up of one of its fully grown aerial roots, there seems to be a brownish color spreading on it, and the tip dried away (the tip has been like that for a while, so I'm not concerned about that), but at the point where it emerged from the stem to about 1/3 of its length it's as green as ever; is everything ok with it? And the little aerial root just stopped growing from the time I had concerns about the offshoot blooming, but it still has a light green tip, is it okay?
Also, I cut the stem back to just above the first node (leaving one full node on it, it is healthy), can an offshoot grow from it?
I live in Toronto Canada (temperatures are at about 10 C or 50 F daily), and my plant is at a west-facing window and gets indirect sunlight. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thank you.
Link to photos:
http://i425.photobucket.com/albums/p...rchidroots.jpg
Phalaenopsis has MANY dead/rotted roots; chance of survival?
Threaded Mode
