Phalaenopsis with awful roots- please help!

[Pony]

(I hope I put this in the right place)

I'm somewhat new to the orchid world but have a thriving collection of indoor orchids of various species.

This particular orchid is a pretty new addition which my mom selected. When I brought it home, I noticed the leaves were slightly wilted. I wasn't terribly concerned because I had brought other orchids home in the same condition and they were fine in a pretty short amount of time. I noticed that I couldn't visibly see its roots (clear plastic pot) but had had others with few roots who only needed some time and care and did fine, so I figured everything was fine. I decided to just keep a closer eye on it to make sure it was okay.

Now it's been awhile and its condition had started to worsen, so I decided to pull it out of its pot, only to find a disaster of a root system:



They are all completely shriveled and soggy. Very few have any tinge of green. The only solid-looking ones are those ones that have been above ground.

So my questions are:
Is this orchid salvagable?
If so, what can I do to help it?
And what probably caused this to happen?


Thanks for any and all help.

[WhiteRabbit]

There are good roots, so chances are good for survival The roots probably rotted due to over-watering - or media too soggy for too long ...
Cut off the rotted roots, pot in the smallest pot you can. With some soaking you might be able to coax those aerial roots into a pot, but obviously don't force them ...

[johnblagg]

Trim the bad and give it time looks like it should recover

[RosieC]

Agreed, remove the hollow/mushy and keep the firm.

Pot it in the tiniest post you can get the roots in to. It might be worth putting extra slits in the sides of the pot to speed up the drying time of the medium (unless you have a very very tiny pot it will fit in.) I have found that recovering phals do best if they dry quickly between waterings and you can therefore water often without the roots staying too wet.

[jenmonkey]

This might sound like a strange question, but Pony, have you ever worked at a hair salon on Santana Row?

Oh, and agree with the rest. Phal's seem to be pretty easy to rescue from a terrible root situation. Have you considered S/H? I'm about to move my Phal's over as soon as I get the pots in...