dormant or recuperating?
 

hello everyone i am new to this forum and i have a quick question. I bought a phal pink dancers a little over a month ago and i love it very much i thought the medium was pure medium bark chips but i noticed that it was still heavy after 4 days i watered it and i got curious. but before that, the bottom leaves started wilting and the buds were very slow in developing and led to bud blasts. that started my curiousity so i took it out of the pot and lo and behold.... a ball of moss in the center that was wet and just not good!!! i was pissed! cause the rest of the space was bark which is what you can see when i take it out of the ceramic pot. so immediately i trimmed off the dead roots, washed, cinnamon powder and all that and i replaced the medium to large bark chips. It has a spike coming out of a primary spike but it seems like it halted and now the bottom leaves looks like elephant skin but the two top leaves still look very healthy. do i just cut the spike off to give it energy on producing more roots?

Are there many roots left?

just one healthy aerial root.

Well I would say with not much root left that would be common for the leaves to get like "elephant skin" they require quite a bit of moisture so this would be a result of the plant not having enough root to get the water it needs to keep its leaves plump...Not to mention if it is still trying to flower I would say it using all its energy to try and reproduce at the sacrifice of the leaves.

I would suggest removing the flower spike ( it sucks I know but I find the plant will usually not throw out any new roots if it in "flowering mode") and making a tent for it and setting it on a dish of gravel with a bit of water in it to raise the humidity up. I also would increase the temp a couple degrees while its in the tent.

I have a heirloom Cattleya from my grandmother that was near death because she decided to pot it in regular potting soil after 10 years and killed all the roots!!! I did this about 3 weeks ago and its just begun to throw out a ton of new roots and plump back up its leaves (the plant still looks ugly and shrivelled but I think it is going to make it) It was also in a dormant stage after flowering which makes it all the more challenging.

Good Luck

oh wow.. yeah i guess im just gonna have to cut the spike and let it rest. it was a very healthy plant when i got it.. thank you!

With only one root left you will want to make sure it is in the smallest pot that root will fit in. Otherwise you risk it rotting too. Good luck! :waving