Repotted Phal w/only aerial roots slow to establish...what to do?

[Claire25]

Hi all,

Thanks everyone who responded to my Cattleya thread that I posted last night. Now I have a Phal. question...

A few weeks ago an orchid-growing friend of mine gave me her Phal. Red Hot Imp 'Dorothy Martin' AM/AOS because she was downsizing her Phal. collection to make room for other orchids. Now, the thing is, she's an experienced grower but she HATES to repot. This Phal. had been growing in the same pot & the same media it was in when she purchased it NINE years ago. Of course it had mostly grown out of its pot by this time! It seemed overall to be healthy, however, and so I did what I always do with Phals that have grown a "trunk": I lopped it off right below some big bunches of roots (on this plant they were all growing will-nilly out into the air) and repotted the top portion into some fresh medium (mostly moss, with some fir bark).

The problem is, it doesn't seem to have taken very well to this handling. The youngest two leaves seem firm and healthy, but all other leaves seem limp and are not a good shade at all--hard to describe, kind of a muddy yellow green "dying" color! The roots (those that are still sticking out of the medium that I can see) have stopped growing as well. Yet, it is still flowering (fragrant!) and actively producing new buds on its flowering spike from which it has been flowering sequentially for a long time.

So, what to do? Will it just take some time for those formerly aerial roots to adapt to pot culture? Should I have done something differently when I repotted this? I'm afraid to disturb it now even just to look at its (pot) roots. Also, would it be a good idea to cut off its flowering spike--maybe doing so would shunt more of its energy into root growth?

Thanks for all your help--I'm not usually big into Phals, but I like this one--it's the first red one I've ever had, and also the only fragrant one!

Claire