Should I return this Blc Hawaiian Passion Carmela?

[Eyebabe]

Sorry (again ) for not completely reading the post.

I would have expected a plant in better condition than the one you received and you are perfectly reasonable to request another plant. They may also want you to return this one and that is also a reasonable request.
I will say however in my experience that it is not unusual for catts to arrive with a bunch of crummy roots.
My standards are fairly high and I am continually dumbfounded that a plant can grow nicely with mostly crap underneath.
Catts are amazingly resilient and given a root trim, fresh potting mix, and some drying out, they usually and quite happily throw out some nice pretty green roots.
When it happens, you will shake your head in disbelief!

[glitchathon]

Eyebabe,
Thanks for the response, and I am glad to hear these things are resilient. I am more than happy to try to keep this thing alive even if it came in poor condition. Any opportunity to learn is a good thing. I do have some S/H materials coming from Ray as well as some CHC which I can mix with perlite and charcoal if I decide not to do S/H. I'm going to let this dry out for another couple of watering intervals and see how it fairs before I do a repot. I would like to see if some root growth happens first. what I DID do so far though, is loosened/removed some media to give the roots more breathing space, so it is less compacted than before.

[Izzie]

I hope you trimmed off what dead roots you could?

[glitchathon]

Originally Posted by Izzie

I hope you trimmed off what dead roots you could?

Trimmed a few but was planning to be more thorough at the time of repotting. But today I decided to return it. It is really looking like there are no healthy roots.

[got ants]

Lots of good advice and I can only add to it by saying this...

Always, ALWAYS repot any new orchid you get.

I was with a buddy of mine at Homey Departed. He picked up an orchid he spotted earlier and asked what I thought. It is not common to see this type of oncidium at this stores and the price was right ($10).

Upon repotting it immediately we found under the top coat of spag moss, was TOP SOIL, with rotting spag in the center of the root. We stripped it down tp bare roots, pressure washed it, lil physan 20 app, and potted it up in our special mix on CHC, lica, charcoal, and our own secret ingredient. It will survive, but only because of the special care.

I'll post a pic once I rip them off the camera, but it's either a sweet sugar, or gower ramsey.