Poor newbie phal orchid

[killerpenguins05]

So I rescued a beautiful full blooming phal with 3 spikes, 8 leaves, appeared in good health.. at Walmart... i know i know i should have known better.. anyways.. i immediately repotted with bark, but all but one root were rotted... damn you walmart! so my question is.. do i clip the flowing spikes? or what do I do?? I want it to have a nice healthy root system.. but the flowers are so pretty! i repotted it in a teeny clear tupperware with holes that i drilled in the bottom. Any advice will be helpful. Thanks!

[Connie Star]

Hi Penguin!
Welcome to OB. I'm listed as a senior member because I post a lot, but I'm not that experienced.
One suggestion is to cut the spike and put it, with the flowers, in a vase. Add some "plant food" and it should last awhile. I accidentally broke a spike from a healthy plant and that's what I did. And there is the "sphag and bag" approach where you put the whole plant, bare root, in a plastic bag with some moist sphagnum moss for a couple of weeks. Sort of an orchid ICU. There are better descriptions of how to do this elsewhere on OB. I've not actually done it myself.
Good luck, and welcome aboard.

[RosieC]

In this case I would cut off the flower spikes, but I agree with Connie, cut them low on the spike and put them in a vase. Someone advised me that you don't need 'cut flower food', just add a bit of clear lemonade (like "Sprite") to the water. I tried it with some standard cut flowers and they actually seemed to do better than with the cut flower food.

I didn't get on with Sphag-n-bag, and that's really for orchids with no roots. I've had to rescue a few, one Phal in particular was down to only a couple of stubby roots.

What I would do if there are any roots is pretty much what you have done, repot in a tiny pot. Not sure what size your tupperware tub is, but I found a tiny 6cm (just over 2") pot is the best. Similar size tiny food containers also work, such as small yogurt pots.

With one of mine I had a long-ish root but it was the only one. I had to put it in a pot that I could fit the root into and soon had problems that most of the pot was empty of roots and the medium stayed wet too long. I solved this by using some cut up pieces of a plastic icecream tub which blocked off most of the inside so there was only medium in about a thrid of the pot, but deep enough for the root to fit. This seemed to work really well and the plant has florished and even flowered while like that.

The main thing with recovery when there are some remaining roots seems to be to be able to water frequently while it still fully drying in between. I found if I could get it in a small enough amount of bark that it dried in 3 days, and was then watered again every 3 days it seemed to really apreciate the amount of water and put out new roots. This only works if you have some roots at all though.