Losing my Phal after I snipped the stem

[shayla]

Wondering if I did something wrong and if there is a way to save my poor orchid. I snipped the stem above the second node a month or so ago (after blooms fell off), and the stem is completely dying, as well as the underneath leaves. Anything I can do? Something I did wrong? Help!

[Discus]

1) the stem dying is normal after flowering; they don't always decide to send out new shoots from the dormant buds there.
2) the lower leaves do eventually die off too - you still have plenty of newer leaves, so I'd say "nothing to worry about"!
It looks pretty healthy to me.

[Silje]

Agree with Discus. No need to worry. Your phal looks happy. It will probably grow some more roots and a leaf or two in the coming months and if you're lucky it will develop a new spike when the temperatures drop in the autumn/winter.

[TyronSA]

One thing i would recommend is to get it out of the sphag moss.. Personaly i HATE the moss because the moss in the middle never dries up fast enough for you to be able to water the plant enough.. So what happens is if you water the plant when the moss dries up you can over time loose the roots on the sides from dehydration or if you water the plant when the top and side moss is dry you will be over watering the middle and root rot an develop.. which is potentially fatal. So i would really suggest get a mixture of bark and coconut shell shavings in there instead of the moss. Then you can also see the roots growing in the middle more clear. Thats just a personal opinion from my side.

[JamesL]

Originally Posted by TyronSA

One thing i would recommend is to get it out of the sphag moss.. Personaly i HATE the moss because the moss in the middle never dries up fast enough for you to be able to water the plant enough.. So what happens is if you water the plant when the moss dries up you can over time loose the roots on the sides from dehydration or if you water the plant when the top and side moss is dry you will be over watering the middle and root rot an develop.. which is potentially fatal. So i would really suggest get a mixture of bark and coconut shell shavings in there instead of the moss. Then you can also see the roots growing in the middle more clear. Thats just a personal opinion from my side.

Yes what Tyron says now is a good time to repot and check out the root system. giving it a good start for the next bloom cycle. JamesL

[RosieC]

The spike dying is just normal.

Usually I would expect only one leaf at a time to die back, however I have one that just finished flowering that is also loosing two, I'm not worried because I've checked the roots... and that's what I would advise here.

Take it out and check the root health, if you want to repot in moss again do that (though like others I'm not a fan of it) or get some bark or another orchid potting medium and repot into that. If the roots are fine then just assume the leaf loss is normal, but if the roots are bad that could also lead to more leaf loss than expected.

Bad roots are hollow/mushy, good roots are firm.