Orchid - It's planted with a lucky bamboo?

[cloud9shopper]

Hello everyone! I am new to the board and am so pleased to find this forum.

I am very new to orchids and recently ordered one online from teleflora. In the photo the orchid was a stand-alone flower, but when it was delivered it was planted with moss in a plastic pot with a lucky bamboo. Attached is a photo.

This is confusing me a bit because I know bamboos normally grow best steeped in water. This is the complete opposite of what I've read a phal orchid wants. My immediate reaction was to re-pot the orchid and seperate it from the bamboo, but I know it shouldn't be re-potted while it's blooming.

This is my second orchid plant. I near killed my first one because I was ignorant to orchid care and overwatered/oversunned it. I want to make sure I'm taking care of my new orchid, so any advice you can provide would be much appreciated!

[greengarden]

Have you already seperated it? Strikes me as one of those things they sell without much regard for the long term... Just wondering whether the lucky bamboo is actually planted with the orchid or if it's just in one of those little vials sitting in the medium, in which case I'd just pull the bamboo out and put it elsewhere and leave the phal for the moment.

[cbuchman]

I suspect that the bamboo is more tolerant of its conditions than the phal. So I'd care for the phal and let the bamboo adjust. Orchid always win out for me

[cloud9shopper]

Greengarden, I haven't separated them yet. I took a look at the roots from above and it looks as though the bamboo is not in a vial. Actually, the orchid roots look to be wrapped around the bamboo! I attached photos. Also, the roots are plentiful and look healthy, but there are a few on top that look dead? Should I cut those off? I also noticed at the bottom of the plastic pot there is one root that is complete white?

Thoughts?

PS - cbuchman, I agree with you. Orchids all the way! That bamboo is so secondary. hehe

[PaphMadMan]

"Lucky Bamboo" is Draceana sanderiana, not really a bamboo at all, and grows naturally as a rainforest understory plant, not in water. It is also a weed that will survive almost anything except extreme drought. Take care of the Phal and the lucky bamboo will probably thrive. If you like them together there's no reason not to leave it that way, but you'll have to cut the bamboo way back occassionally to keep it in scale with the Phal.