Too many phals in one pot?

[birdybrain]

I'm new to orchids (6 months) and my mom has now gotten excited about orchids, too. I have a question about one of the small phals she just purchased from lowes. There are a total of 5 separate plants in this tiny pot and they are usually sold with 1 or maybe 2 small phals in a pot. I'm not able to tell how many are keikis. The spikes are from 2 separate plants, so maybe the other 3 are keikis. We re-potted yesterday after a good soaking the night before in KLN & Dynagro. There were some bad roots, but we got the little guys set a little further down in the pot which I hope will help. We went with a slightly larger pot thinking all those roots would need plenty of room and moisture, but we changed the little guys from all Sphag to a mix of sphag & phal potting mix (using the sphag mostly as a top dressing). Only 1 leaf looks as if it may turn yellow. I've included pics from before re-potting & after.

My question is whether we can leave all 5 of the phals together indefinitely? I figure in the wild they might grow in clumps like this, but would like some advice.

Sorry the photos aren't very good quality.

Thanks!

[Cactuseed]

everything looks good to me. I don't see any keikis or 5 in a pot that you mentioned (?). i think you and moms are good to go. Maybe post a pic of where these babies will live?

[birdybrain]

It's hard to see, but there are stems/bases of 5 separate phals in there. I thought a few might be basal keikis. After viewing some pics of basal keikis it looks like they are physically attached to the base of the mother phal. I'll take a closer look at the plant later tonight. Perhaps we have 5 separate seedlings that were planted together.

I guess until & unless they look too crowded, we will just leave them together. It certainly makes a nice full looking pot

[kevin1217]

It does seem like basal keikis. Looks great!

[rangiku]

Always use the smallest possible pot which will contain all the Phals roots. They love to be potbound.

[birdybrain]

Thanks for all the help. This orchid blasted it's remaining buds, but all the leaves still look good. I think we will leave it be and just watch it carefully.