eek! black roots! need help
 

oh yay! my potting mix just arrived!
I'll start with my mom's old one, that one looks tightly packed in its moss, like it needs it the most badly. so I'll just pull it out and- wait...I hadn't watered her in over a week, why is this moss in the middle still wet...OH MY GOODNESS WHAT

http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i1...s/100_2768.jpg

so here's my noobiest of noob question for you all, it looks like almost the entire root system is attached to some black roots at the center, which doesn't seem healthy at all. I'm torn between the idea of cutting out all the black (which would mean almost all of its roots, even some decent looking light brown and firm ones that are coming out of the black ones), versus leaving that huge root system intact. opinions? I'm going to set this down gently and repot the other two real quick.

EDIT: the one with white blooms doesn't look nearly as bad:

http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i1...s/100_2769.jpg

what black was there was tiny tips to a couple. gone now!

based on that, I think I'm going to just repot my mom's as is, leaving most of it intact - if the black isn't attached to other brown roots, I'll snip it off, and if it is, I'll leave it alone. if I need to repot this one very soon as well based on your opinions, I will.

I'm switching pots - that was way too big of a pot for my mom's, and it was getting really hard to cram all those healthy roots from the one with white blooms into that little pot. my mom's gets a clear pot now, which is awesome because I can keep an eye on all those roots.

I think I'm getting the hang of this a little. I'm saving the third one for tomorrow though - my back is killing me :S

Yup this is why I use the skewer method now to know when the center is dry and I can water again.

I think you did the right thing, sometimes if the roots are rotted in the middle but still have healthy ends I take of the rotted vellum with my fingers and leave the rest. It also helps to anchor the phal in the pot a little better.

Hope they do well for you :)

I would personally cut off the roots at the start of the black, then pot it, dont water for 2-3 days and then dont fertilise for about 7-8 days, but thats just what i would do...

Since it always seems to me that there are always dead (rotted) roots in the center, I like to tuck some styro into the center of the root mass -a small overturned net pot (or any pot with drainage) in the bottom center of the pot also does miraculous things (for me, at least) ;)

I never thought of sticking styro up into the root mass, I'll have to give that a try. And you are right about using the inverted net pot and or even a clay pot at the bottom. When I started doing that several years ago my plants really appreciated it.

Bill

hmmmm. I think I'll keep an eye on it, and maybe unpot it in 2-4 months and make sure it's doing ok. it's in a bark mix + a bit of moss now, with some very coarse bark in the middle where the rot was - I kept the moss away from that area.

sounds like I have it in the right kind of pot, just wish I had not forgone the styrofoam

http://i71.photobucket.com/albums/i1...s/100_2771.jpg

I wish I knew where to get more pots like this one. this is what the orchids from Aldi's came in, and based on all that I'm reading, these sound like they're really good for it.

I started using the styro in the center when I had a small, almost rootless plant; no pot, net or otherwise, small enough to use in it. It actually only took a half of a packing pnut ;)

Sounds good :)