Beginner's Attempt to Rescue Phal

[SophOrchid]

Hi folks! After years of admiring orchids from afar, I can finally say I am an orchid owner!

Last summer, I was gifted a gorgeous phal. I cannot remember if it was ID’ed. Based on my very limited research, it is a phal. When I received it, it had gorgeous purple/fuchsia flowers & several buds. I cannot quite remember, but I would say that I was able to enjoy the flowers for about a month or two. Possibly a bit longer. I remember that it had several long aerial roots. Admittedly, at the time, I thought they were unsightly and frequently manipulated them by trying to shove them back in the bark/moss mixture. Yikes! I know, just thinking about it makes me (now) cringe. While it was in bloom, I ignored it for the most part. I watered it infrequently, was not too concerned about the sun exposure, & moved it around a lot. Sometime it was in the kitchen & other times on the dinning room table. In moving it so much, I caused a bit of damage to one of the leaves. Oops.

Around November, I realized that the leaves were withering & I finally did some “research” on orchids. I cut the spike down (the flowers were long gone) & made an effort to water it more frequently. Unfortunately, the orchid probably sat in the medium for a long time & should have been repotted. My frequent watering (about once/twice a week) eventually lead to root rot. I now know that the medium was very broken down. Seeing the wilted leaves lead me to believe that I was not watering it enough. I watered it with more frequency & moved it a west-facing windowsill. Eventually the orchid suffered from sunburn. One of the leaves turned completely yellow—fortunately, it was an older bottom leaf. After the sunburn incident, I decided it should go outside. I am not sure why I thought that would be a good idea. I had it outside for a few days. The temperature dropped significantly at night so I would bring it in most nights. Yes, my poor phal spent a few nights out in 45-35°F weather. Despite all of this, the orchid grew a new leaf in the months since I have had it & developed 4 new roots. 3 aerial roots & one “regular” root.

A couple days ago, I finally decided to repot the orchid. I sterilized my supplies and cut away at the dead roots. The root rot was very extensive! Yikes. I was left with about 4-5 "regular" roots (mostly on the same side) that are not very long (about 4 inches). I'm not sure when, but along the way I lost most of the preexisting aerial roots. (Probably from my constant manipulating when I first got it? They've been gone for at least a couple of months). Unfortunately, the majority of the roots were completely mushy and dark black/brown. The medium it was in was complete mush & very broken down. It was a mixture of moss and very small pieces of bark. I decided to reuse the plastic planter (5.5 inch diameter) & cleaned it out. I planted it in “Sun Bulb Better Gro Special Orchid Mix” (fir bark, charcoal, and coarse perlite & soaked it for about 4 hrs), & included some Miracle-Grow orchid plant food spikes (NPK ratio is 10-10-10). I now have the orchid in a permanent spot where it will get filtered morning sunlight & I placed a small dish with water near the plant (to help with humidity). The temperature in the room stays between 74-76°F & drops to 72-69°F at night. I am determined to save the orchid, or at the very least learn from this experience so that my next orchid has a better life.

Please let me know what additional suggestions y'all have. I am eager to learn more about these gorgeous plants!

[aliceinwl]

Based on my limited experience the new set-up sounds good. The bowl of water is probably not necessary. If you have it in a clear pot and can see the roots in the media, water when they turn silver. If you can’t see the roots, I recommend giving the skewer method linked at the top of the forum a go (at least until you calibrate yourself to what the pot weighs and looks like when it needs water).

[camille1585]

Sounds like you've done everything right. What a life that orchid has had! It shows how resilient orchids are despite the common belief that they are fragile, delicate things. Any other house plant would have croaked after that much abuse (which happens to many first time Phal owners, you are not alone!).

The only issue might be the pot size. Usually you want to use the smallest pot the roots will comfortably fit in, and with so few roots, 5.5in pot might be too big. but with no photos it's hard to tell. A large pot with few roots doesn't dry out very fast in the center, which can lead to root rot.

As Alice says, the dish of water is useless. Common advice used to be to mist plants frequently, place a dish of water nearby or use humidity trays to raise the relative humidity, but in truth they don't do much. The amount of water evaporating is not enough to raise the humidity more than a few % around the plants.

[Mountaineer370]

Welcome to the board! I'm sure many of us remember the excitement of getting our first orchid, as well as the confusion that goes along with learning proper care and culture. It sounds like you are doing everything right now, and your orchid has a very good chance of thriving.

[Laticauda]

Wow, what an adventure. You've received some excellent advice thusfar.
I can't say I'd recommend the fertilizer spikes. In my research they only lead to salt burns. I hope you'll be able to post some pictures for us and keep us updated with your progress.

[SophOrchid]

Thank y’all for the encouragement!

Aliceinwl: Thank you for directing me to the skewer method. I will definitely rely on it while I learn about my orchid’s watering needs. Camille1585: It is very resilient! Despite the months of neglect & abuse, it has root growth & a new leaf. I will be ecstatic if I ever manage to get it to reblooom.

I attached some pictures. The top leaf is the new leaf (it has some minor splitting). I have the plastic pot inside of a terra cotta pot.

A few questions:

1. Should I cut off the yellow leaf? Since I took off so many roots, I am a bit hesitant to continue cutting parts of it off. Thoughts?
2. Should I re-pot it again into a smaller pot? I was concerned that a smaller pot would not give me enough height for the longer leaves. I did not want them dragging on the table since they are so wilted.
3. Did I include too much potting mix? I do not have a spike to help it stay upright & used the mix to help the orchid balance

[Ray]

Orchids are very undemanding when it comes to nutrition, and I can pretty much guarantee that the fertilizer spikes will destroy the root system.

It also looks like it could use a LOT more water.

[Roberta]

Originally Posted by SophOrchid

A few questions:

1. Should I cut off the yellow leaf? Since I took off so many roots, I am a bit hesitant to continue cutting parts of it off. Thoughts?
2. Should I re-pot it again into a smaller pot? I was concerned that a smaller pot would not give me enough height for the longer leaves. I did not want them dragging on the table since they are so wilted.
3. Did I include too much potting mix? I do not have a spike to help it stay upright & used the mix to help the orchid balance

I think that at this point, just leave it alone. Let the yellow leaf drop of its own accord. Pot size and media look OK for size of the plant. Keeping the plant stable is super-important for letting new roots develop without damage, and it looks like you have managed that. The bark is big enough to dry out quickly and give roots air, you'll get the watering frequency figured out, knowing that the need will change as the weather warms up and therefore the humidity rises (in part because you'll be running the heater less) So stay observant. At least one of those new roots looks inclined to stay out of the pot... let it do whatever it wants, aerial roots are very normal for a Phalaenopsis.

[thegirlwiththemouseyhair]

So, I'm also fairly new to orchids, having only had two for the past year and a half or so (two years in the spring!) I had a lot of problems with one of mine, similar to yours in that I accidentally got root rot, then damage to a leaf, and basically a sequence of problems. I'm mentioning that because orchids really are hardy and tough to kill for good. Like you, I lost a ton of roots on my orchid, repotted it, and waited. Like you, I did some mechanical damage to aerial roots/new roots it was trying to grow that stunted their growth. My orchid is thriving again, after about 2-3 months. It's now trying to grow 3-7 new roots (I accidentally scratched a couple of those so I doubt I'll get get all 7, oops) and a new leaf. Yours can too; it might not even take that long, relatively speaking.

Also, I'm not an expert on sun damage, but I would recommend cutting off a damaged or dried out leaf in the process of wilting. The plant might be able to put that energy to better use healing and growing new, healthy tissue than trying to keep alive a damaged leaf that's on the way to dying. (I applied a similar principle to an old, withered leaf when my orchid got damaged, and cutting that leaf doesn't seem to have harmed its recovery.) However, I might be wrong.

[Roberta]

Originally Posted by thegirlwiththemouseyhair

The plant might be able to put that energy to better use healing and growing new, healthy tissue than trying to keep alive a damaged leaf that's on the way to dying. (I applied a similar principle to an old, withered leaf when my orchid got damaged, and cutting that leaf doesn't seem to have harmed its recovery.) However, I might be wrong.

The sun damaged leaf is still green, so it is contributing to the plant. The burn area is dry, so it is not a source of rot (which is the only really good reason for cutting, I think) So just let it be... when the plant is done with that damaged leaf, it will drop all by itself. Personally, I'm inclined to leave anything green (even spikes where the flowers have dropped) One of the ways in which orchids have evolved to survive in a very nutrient-poor environment (like the side of a tree) is to recycle nutrients from the parts that they no longer need. For a recovering plant, don't cut possibly useful tissue just for aesthetics... let the plant do what comes naturally, just intervene when protection is needed (such as removing rot) For the rest, a little benign neglect is desirable.