The Phal abuse ends here.

[BR@NDI LOVE'S PHAL'S]

Hi I Have 4 phal orchids i got from safeway and..i think one's already sick..i believe due to overwatering??It's lookin better now though!?My orchid's are in their plastic pots with spagnum moss..And they are inside plastic decorative pots...They are so new i havent even watered them yet?Do i want to leave them in the plastic or should i place them in the decorative pot?What's a good amount of water to add??

[LouieP]

so i looked inside the pot and found most of the roots to be mushy and dark brown. i felt bad for my little plant what can i do next ?

[NatalieS]

Originally Posted by LouieP

so i looked inside the pot and found most of the roots to be mushy and dark brown. i felt bad for my little plant what can i do next ?

Louie, you will need to remove the bad roots and repot your plant. It can recover but it will lose its flowers. There is plenty of advise about repotting your plant in the Potting and Repotting section of this forum, but here's a recent link from the beginner section:

http://www.orchidboard.com/community...g-lots-qs.html

[Galant]

Hi guys, I'm new to all this, and plant-care in general. I'm hoping you can help. I've been given an orchid, a Phal I do believe, and it's not in too good shape. At least, it doesn't appear to be.

It's in the original media and pot in which I received it - although I took it out of a ceramic outer pot because I read that they do enjoy some air movement.

It had three health looking leaves, but one developed a yellow spot at the base and then fell off.

The stems have been cut back.

The roots don't look so good either. It did have a lot of dead roots so I cut back a lot of those. Not much remains.

An album with photos can be viewed here: Pictures by GalantKoh - Photobucket

I'm located in Gibraltar, Europe. We have mild winters and warm summers. My house has no sort of temperature control.

My house also has only west or east facing windows. However, the east-facing windows look out at street level and directly opposite is a large apartment block, and directly behind that there is the major face of the rock of Gibraltar, so it's not the brightest direction. The west facing windows look over a bay, and so get decent light most of the day, and good light in the afternoon. The windows do get opened most days.

I have it in the west-facing kitchen window so far.

I've read these plants can come back from some dire circumstances so I'm hoping that with your help I can rescue this one, and I aspire to learn how to have greener fingers over all!

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

[Bud]

Galant, trust your instincts on this. I already like what measures you have done to help the plant survive...read the postings of some of the members here and find a watering / fertilizer regimen for you and your plant...

[Galant]

Well that's good to hear. Right now, my feelings are uncertain on what to do next. I'm not sure my house offers sufficient humidity. I'm also not sure whether the open window lets in too much cooler air.
I've been thinking new media might be good, that the current media is too densely packed, but we lack a good garden shop here. I had seen on youtube someone using glass beads.

I also wondered if using one of those plastic bag set-ups might not be a good idea.

Watering has left me a little confused. I'm tending to watering less right now, and if I see dampness on the media then I'm leaving it be.

The roots don't seem to be doing much in terms of recovery, and in fact, since the changes I made, the only development I've seen is losing the one leaf.

Not sure if anyone can pinpoint anything further?

Thanks!

[nenella]

Galant If it were mine I would also be using a rooting hormone on it like KLN, this will incite new root growth. Good Luck!

[hyprgrl79]

Ok, so I have this deleriously happy Phal getting ready to burst into bloom & I'm pretty sure I just doomed it... I'm hoping for some advice how to help it recover.

I lifted it from its growing pot & trimmed back the brown mushy rotten roots & set it in some fresh media (mostly fir bark)... Now I've read that by cutting those rotting roots I may have introduced bacteria and/or fungus to the root system. Is there any way at this point to prevent a bacterial/fungal takeover?

On top of that, I am ashamed to say that (without doing any research first) I trimmed back all the aerial roots. Mistakenly, I thought they were dead. I didn't realize how vital they are to the health of my Phal.

So now, it has one open bloom, tons of buds, several green fleshy roots, healthy leaves.. but no aerial roots.

Is it doomed or is there anything I can do to encourage its continued flourishing... or do I just need to step back, let it be & let it recover in its own time...

Any suggestions/advice would be greatly appreciated

Thanks!

[TheJadeOrchid]

Hey, here are some pictures of my Phal. NoID. You can see someone has cut a leaf off and a leaf has been split. Where the blooms were has turned brown. Any recommendations for where I should trim the spike? Someone recommended to me to cut as close to base as I could without damaging the base.




Thank you!

[silken]

You can cut the spike just above the base. You can leave 1/2 an inch or so. It looks green to me so you could just cut it back partway to above one of the nodes on the stem. sometimes they will send out another spike from one of the nodes and produce some more blooms.

But if you want to let you plant have a rest and grow some roots or leaves, cut it to just above the base. That plant looks a bit over-potted to me as well. I'm not sure if you potted it or it came that way. Just make sure not to over-water and let it get dry before watering again. But don't leave it dry for more than a day or two.