In my heart I feel that what James M is saying is accurate, though I am not a botinist. I have examined at least 100 phals at stores. Either the roots are kept perpetually green and watered or they are rotten already or a combination of both. Once you take the green perpetually watered roots out of their airtight vault of sphag and plastic, the air hits them and natural dessication and death grabs them. Those pretty green roots behind plastic are zombie roots. The nice grey roots are healthy. When you buy plants with zombie roots, go into immediate action. If you do not remove them from their crypt, they will die anyway. What I've done the past few times is cut off the spike with or without flowers right away. Next. Lay the plant on a newspaper for a day. Let the roots dry out. Next? Pot into very loose medium. Any pot with air flow and good drainage will work. Tie it in so it doesn't wobble. They grow in lava, bark, combinations. Next. Put in a warm bright place. Next. Water at
least twice a day without getting the crown wet. I personally mount them sideways. Try to use rain water. Do not put near cold air, like an air conditioning vent.
Also, I will only buy phals in late spring so they have time to put out roots.people in the Southern hemisphere have a different time scedual. I want those roots to have a good 4 or 6 months before it is cold again. When it cools down they go into a kind of dormant stage, and hopefully produce a spike.
They do want and need lots of water, but it must drain quickly. These stores that sell them make the mistake of watering them but not allowing water to escape and that is what kills the roots. I have several here with two to three to inch roots. Using lots of small but frequent waterings, (I'm a stay at home artist), putting them in real sun beneath a tree where they get real warmth and real rain, helps. This is the Ideal. If you do need to grow indoors under lights, you need to find the optimum.
I am also now against trimming off roots. If the roots have rot or mold yes, buy just dry roots provide ancorage to the plant. If the velamin is falling off, it is gone. Take off the velamin and leave the core. If the root still has something firm in it, it is an old but still working root. The phals that I totally took the roots off of (an experiment) are doing much worse than the phals I left the old roots on. If you have quick, good drainage, your roots should not rot.this logic, if you will comes from the fact that in the wild, colonies of orchids live for years together in the same spot and many roots die yearly. All orchids would be dead if they had problems with rotting roots. Root rot is a man made problem.
---------- Post added at 07:52 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:27 PM ----------
Quote:
Originally Posted by MattWoelfsen
You should never keep or store any water treatments. If you have leftovers, pour them onto your garden plants. Start fresh.
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Matt, can you cite that? My kelp mix is processed then reconstituted in water. It is bought in a liquid form. I add a few tablespoons to a gallon of water further diluting it. Its been in water for months and it is good, then I put it in more water and it is suddenly bad overnight? Sorry. The logic is not there. Its the same as saying if you dilute liquid dishwashing detergent in water it no longer has the power to clean dishes. I'm a little ignorent about all this technical stuff, but that makes no sense! I went to the wrong school, obviously. Sorry.
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