Dying Phal? Help!

[Galant]

Hi guys, I'm reposting here because other than a short reply from Bud, I haven't been getting much response in the Phal sticky.

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.

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

Phals have the strongest chance of recovery if there are enough strong roots to support a group of living meristem tissue within their crown, even if they lose all their leaves. It is by no means a guarantee, however, you're still talking about probabilities rather than a sure fire bet.

As long as temperatures don't go below 55 F - 60 F, you're fine.

There's a reason I no longer personally respond to many problems regarding Phals anymore...

1. I'm too busy and don't have the energy to do so.

2. Too many people ask about Phals and the questions are usually very similar to each other. This is due to the fact that Phals are usually the first orchids people usually start with, which in my opinion, is the worst kind of orchid to start out with as a beginner. Imo, I think there are far more easier species or genera of orchids for a beginner.

3. There's a sticky with more answers to your questions than you can imagine about growing Phals. And if the pics and links are still good, you can see photos. If not, then you might still be able to catch some photos if you're diligent about doing a Google search.

But back to your quandary - it is definitely possible to bring a sickly Phal back to health. Many people have done it, and they are testimony to the fact that it can be done.

Again, imo, I believe that the source to many people's problems is not knowing how Phals grow naturally in the wild - as in how they orient themselves on the trees they grow on, as well as the media they are usually growing in upon first purchase, (which is moss). Growing them in moss for some reason tends to be a gigantic disaster for most people than not. I'd recommend either bark or CHC.

Next time, if you're still interested in trying out Phals to grow, I highly recommend the following species or hybrids with the following species in their lineage to start off with:

Phal equestris
Phal stuartiana
Phal philippinensis
Phal schilleriana

From here you can continue on incrementally in level of difficulty.

A heads up though, should you find you'd like to grow Phal appendiculata, I strongly recommend against it for now, as they are the most difficult Phalaenopsis species to grow at the moment - (until someone figures it out of course).