Phalaenopsis root care questions - Page 2 - Orchid Board

Sahlabiya · #1 07-02-2013, 04:09 PM

Hi Everyone,

I just joined today because I am worried about the roots on my phal...I've had it since October and I got it from a friend - clearly from a grocery store type location. It had great flowers that bloomed for 4 months. In spring I re-potted it and one flower bloomed, a couple of buds did not. It's growing a beautiful shiny new leaf.

A few days ago I realized it has some root rot, so I took it out of its medium (mixed fine and coarse bark), which was very wet at the bottom. I cut off all of the roots that had skins that came off easily to reveal strings inside, or were mushy. I soaked the roots in a fungicide (Agri-Fos) for about 10 minutes, cleaned the pot, and repotted in a mixture of coarse bark and Hydroton. Now I just want to check if things look OK and where to go from here - I am new to growing orchids and I lost one phal to a long, slow death of root rot so I'm trying to do things right at an earlier point.

I'm attaching photos - I'm curious about the following questions: (I last watered 2 days ago but have done some mild misting on the aerial roots and leaves each day).
1) Do the aerial roots look OK - especially the fuzzy one in the third photo? They have some parts that are green/silver and some parts that have brown parts or strings attaching green parts. I tried not to cut any root that is solid no matter the color - some have brown blotches.
2) I left more aerial roots out then there were before this repotting. Should I make sure more roots are covered?
3) Is a mixture of bark and Hydroton ok?
4) The lower leaves look like they could be starting to turn yellow (see photo number 4). How can I tell how often I should be watering? I've been feeding once a week with a 20-20-20 orchid food at half the prescribed strength (I use the prescribed strength for my Oncidium

I will be so grateful if anyone can check if I am going in the right direction with this, and steer me towards how often to water!