Roots on repotted big-box orchid
 

Hello! About a month ago, while shopping at Home Depot, I walked by a beautiful phalaenopsis I just couldn't pass up. It was the best looking of the orchids they had available. The spike was tall, gracefully curved and had large, well developed flowers. I noticed the plastic pot seemed very heavy, though.

Upon getting the flower home, I didn't once need to water it in the month I've had it. every time I poked a chopstick into the sphagnum to test for moisture, it came out very wet. I noticed the visible roots were starting to turn black. I decided to repot it in fir bark.

Upon removing the plant from the pot i realized it had literally pounds of thoroughly soaked (and thoroughly mildew-smelling) sphagnum packed into the roots. I can't even begin to fathom how they got that much moss into the pot! I had to use the garden hose on strong, along with half an hour of picking and pulling to get rid of all the moss :((

Anyways, on to my question. Obviously with all the rotten moss, many of the roots were dead and rotted :( I trimmed all these away and repotted the plant in fir bark. I've posted pictures of the pruned root mass. It looks like it is still rather rotted, down to the base itself. I decided to snip the flower stalk entirely off to allow the plant to (hypothetically) devote its energy to regrowing healthy roots.

If anyone would be willing to look at my pictures and let me know whether It was an OK idea to snip the flower stalk, and whether it is at all realistic to expect the plant to survive given the condition of the main mass off the roots. There are still plenty of healthy roots, but the juncture from which they arise seems rotted.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!! :biggrin:

PS: the pictures show the post pruning roots (trying to focus on the rotting at the main portion of the root mass) and the pile of disgusting moss i pulled out from the plant. I also put in a macro shot of one of the flowers, pre-snip!!

Hi and welcome to OB!

I think your phal will survive just fine. Even if that central portion is rotted, phals are monopodial and will put roots out higher up on the stem. The remaining roots also look good and new growth will come from there, too.



I would probably have left the spike on to enjoy the blooms. I think the plant would have made it with the blooms although the blooms might have dropped sooner than normal.

Good luck!

Bingo

I had the same thing happen to me when I bought a Phal from the grocery store. The moss was way too tight and held too much moisture for too long. The roots were worse than yours. As I type it is months later and the blooms are still going and new roots and a new leaf are growing. The roots are coming not only from the base of the plant but also have branched off the old roots. I should also add that I repotted into a bark mix and use MSU fertilizer. My Phal seems a lot happier now.

i learnt a lesson about this too... nowadays, i'll pull every new plant to check the medium. if sphag, i'll most probably change a new one. if charcoal i'll see first if there's a need... all the old sphags & potting material are recycled except diseased - i put them in soil of my non-chid plants...

I think it should be OK. I've seen ones with a lot less roots than that.

I'm not sure it it would be worth treating the base of the plant with peroxide which I know a lot of people use to stop rot spreading (although I've not tried it myself).

The remaining roots look good and there are a fair number of them, so I would then pot it back up and care for it carefully.

If you want to remove the spike there is no harm in that and I have removed spikes from ones which are struggling in the past. But it should not hurt to leave it and let the Phal decide for it's self if it's going to drop the flowers and conserve energy.

Goodluck.

if its not to late, put the spike you cut off in water. they last a while in water. your phal should do just fine. mine had one root on is and i still saved it. i put it in water culture and and it grew back roots. but they also died at the same rate. anyways your phal should do fine in bark

Hi Help, I think it will be too late for the spike... this post was from back in 2009!

There have been various bits of Spam in the last couple of days which have been cleared up by Sue (from the look of it). I guess one of those brought this back to the top of the list.

It would be interesting to know if this plant made it though... wonder if Anthony is arround at all to give us an update.

Lol oopsies

Unfortunately, the plant succumbed and was discarded :( I do appreciate the advice given, though. The truth is that I probably could have nurtured it back to health, but simply didn't have the devotion to do so with a cheap plant :-[

thats to bad :( but on the bright side, you learned something! and, you can now fill the empty spot with new orchids