Phalaenopsis orchid with absolutely no roots growing??
 

Hello, this is my first ever post with this forum though I've used your knowledge extensively (Thank you all!!) :) I am very new to orchids and while l have learned much from researching there's a couple of things I've experienced that I've been having difficulty gaining knowledge on.

Enter Nubby, the first orchid I ever got: When I got Nubby I only knew basic information about orchids and done moderate research on them...so naturally I felt like I had enough knowledge to write a Nobel Peace prize worthy encyclopedia on Orchids and could grow an orchid Paradise in a week lol :blushing: The resulting disaster was me cutting off all of Nubby's roots down to a stub despite, now thinking back on it, her having plenty of viable roots to work with :blushing:

It is now been almost 3 months since that day and surprisingly she is still alive. Nubby literally only has a nub or stump. She has no aerial roots at all and only consist of a stem and leaves. Despite this she's still growing and has a new leaves coming in! I have actually gotten so used to her and her stub that I can tell when she needs water based off of slight color variations at the bottom of her stub. She was VERY dehydrated when I got her so her leaves never lost really lost their wrinkles but her new growth is green and strong like she has roots supporting her! The tip of her Nub/Stub is black which I thought maybe the problem but everything above the layer of black is healthy and it's not spreading at all so I don't want to mess with it especially since she doesn't have much to go on. I do sprayed an fungicide on it occasionally though which does nothing to the blackness. Has anyone has ever dealt with this situation before? Am I just missing something that's causing her not to grow roots but still grow leaves? Is there something I should be doing or should I just leave her be and hope for the best?

Background: I live in a dry climate with little humidity. I do have a humidifier in my room that is running 24/7 that the orchids stay next to. Because I got tired of root rot I switched over to Bare rooting my orchids which has been fantastic :biggrin: I made this change about 3 weeks ago and this change included Nubby with no ill effects seen from her.

Thank you for your help and sorry about the long post!!

---------- Post added at 02:14 AM ---------- Previous post was at 02:10 AM ----------

I should point out the blackness at the bottom of her stub is hard so I don't think it's rot but again I'm new to this :)

Thank you again for your help!

Immerse the plant in a KelpMax solution for a few hours. You'll see roots soon.

Keep it MAX humidity until they emerge to slow the desiccation process.

Thank you! I will try that. It is odd though that it is doing so well with no roots for so long.

Also I realized after, this is the only orchid of the seven I have that I named just because it is so odd lol

An orchid with no roots and leaf (or leaves) can remain green and still living for a couple of months or more. But if it remains without roots, the leaves etc will deteriorate eventually. So some auxin based stimulant applied to the base of the plant might help to get something going before it's too late.