overwatered, dried out, but roots seem to be dead

[sbowling429]

I have had my orchid 5 years. its always been healthy and beautiful flowers. i recently moved from CA to VA and brought it with me. I continued to water it as i usually did. however one day i noticed it was severely wet. apparently it stopped absorbing the water. i dried it out. not sure if i should cut the roots that appear to be dead or if i should leave it. when do i put it back in its tightly fitted pot and resume regular care? this plant is very special to me and i am trying to desperately save it.

Help!!! Here are some photos of my orchid.

[bil]

Can't see the pic.

If it is in a tight pot and permanently wet, urgent repotting is advisable.

I assume it is a phalenopsis? If so, don't bother cutting roots, and apart from removing all/most of the old medium leave them strictly alone and repot in a larger pot in coarse bark, 1-2 inches, sieve it to take out all the small stuff.
If the roots are shot, there is a chance it will recover, as long as the plant isn't too damaged by all this.

[sbowling429]

i thought i added photos, i guess i don't know how to do it. yes it is a phalenopsis. i did take it out of the pot and dried it out. some of the roots are almost translucent now but the leaves are bright green still and the stem itself seems to be ok. its still not in a pot. wasn't sure how long to leave it out to dry. it seems it is dry all the way through.

photos are added in my original post, if you don't mind taking a closer look. thanks

[Dollythehun]

First, welcome. You will find we all grow a little differently. Here is how I would repot it. Using sterilized shears, cut the dead, dried up roots off. You have a couple good roots and some starting. That's good. Pot it up in your preferred medium, if you've got a heavy watering hand use bark, if you like spag, you will have to be more restrained with water. Find a comfortable size pot and nestle it in. Soak well until water runs through and lift the pot. When it seems light again, water. You can also take a clear plastic bag, snip a few holes in it and put it over the top to up the humidity. I use medium bark. If you use that, rinse it well and soak it overnight first, then drain and pot. As I said, we all grow differently. I use various bark sizes and clay pots, others differ. Take our advise, sift it and do what works best for you and good luck. Also see thread under Phalanopsis section."The Phal abuse stops here."

[sbowling429]

thank you. what do you mean sift it?

[rbarata]

You have new looking roots growing so now it's the time to repot it.
I'd sugest to use coarse bark in a transparent plastic pot. The roots of your orchid (it's a phalaenopsis, aka phal) when wet are green. The green starts to fade away as they are getting dry until they become silver. That's the time to water again.
The transparent pot allows you to monitor the root color and help you to know when to water. Let half top of the pot dry out, or maybe a little more.

[Dollythehun]

Some bark has fine silt or debris in it. You only want the bark, the silt will plug up the roots.

[dounoharm]

wow....it seems that this plant has a very long stem....most of the dead roots are low down, and there are good ones trying to grow at the top near the leaves....you will have a lot of dead roots and useless stem if you try to pot this! what I do in this circumstance is to perform some radical surgery by just whacking the stem of the plant off about 1/2 to 1" below those green roots....this makes it much more manageable, and will allow you to pot in a smaller pot....when a plant is stressed, if you put it in a big pot with lots of media to cover up that useless stem, the media will not dry out quick enough....the plant needs lots of airflow among those roots....I leave it sit for a couple days to harden off that cut. you can dust it with rootone or something like that, BUT NOT CINNAMON....do not put cinnamon on roots!

when I pot phals, I like to use very large chunky media...and I prefer ordering it instead of buying that mulch they sell at the big box stores. you get so much trash in that and it is already decomposing! I hate the stuff!

I have found that certain parts of the country require different treatment of your orchids...in California, I used clay pots instead of plastic, my preference, you may like plastic....and different orchids like different pots too....so its trial and error....good luck!

---------- Post added at 07:17 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:08 PM ----------

oops! got your move backwards! so you are currently in Virginia! so, when I was in nc, just below you, I used plastic pots and water a bit less frequently, lol...still, use a big pan of gravel under your orchid...gl!

[bil]

Feh. As said above, we all have different ways. I like simple and effective.

When I buy a phal, I rip the damn thing out of the pot as soon as I get it home, because the pots so often contain a horror story.
I pot it in a LARGE and shallow pot, about 35 cm diameter and 6 inches deep, and I use coarse bark, 1-2 " and I ieve it to remove all crap and small stuff. I pot in dry bark and leave for two days before waterng.

I don't TOUCH the roots, I just shove it in the pot and leave it for two days before watering.

Using coarse bark you have to water more often, but rot and over watering aren't a problem.

[Roberta]

I think that all of these methods accomplish the same thing, that Phals love and need - lots of air around the roots, moist (humid) but not soggy. One of the things (along with the fact that any mix starts to break down after 3 years or so) that may have caused your plant to stay too wet was the humidity change - California is a lot drier, so you correctly watered more frequently. If you kept watering at the same frequency in a humid Virginia, soggy. So... comes down to "what's the objective?" - air in the root zone, damp not constantly wet... how you accomplish that in different environments may vary, but focus on the objective.