Help needed to cure sick orchid

[supermoniQ]

Originally Posted by TyronSA

I dont want to sound crud or anything. I wouldnt want you to get your hopes up about this one.. To me it looks like you had root rot going on there and you did not notice. The root rot then spread to the crown.

Did you grow your phal in Sphag moss?

Yes, it was in moss. You were right, the rot spread to the remaining leaf and killed it. I really wanted to save this one since I've had it for about a year. Lesson learned: now I know to repot them after bringing them home.
Thanks for your feedback!!

[james mickelso]

As much as I dislike sphagnum moss you can pot most orchids in it successfully. Just as long as it isn't packed too firmly around the roots so there is adequate air flow around the root mass. In dry environments it is actually a very good media. But it is also attacked readily by bacteria and fungus because it is organic and doesn't dry very quickly in humid environments. It is excellent at providing some moisture when used chopped up in a bark media. Generally phals are planted on top of a dense plug of sphagnum moss when grown in huge mass production facilities and then when a year or two old that is put in a pot and more sphagnum moss is packed around that. That is why when we get them at the big box stores we water them and they quickly succumb to root rot or suffocation. Or the big box store clerks water them and when we get them they are already on the road to death. Phals are grown for their flowers in very warm, humid, windy green houses and forced into flowering as early as they can be by manipulating their light levels. It stresses them quite a bit and they really don't have the reserves to flower again any time soon by the time we get them. Then we try and get them to flower off the original spike. They have little left to fight off any fungal/bacterial issues and die.