Phal: Great roots, bad leaves. To fertilize or not to fertilize?
 

I am rehabbing two phalaenopsis NoID orchids that I left with my family over the summer. What I think happened was they got sunburn and my mother decided it looked like bacterial leaf spot and cut all but one or two leaves off. The roots look phenomenal though. Nice new growth and everything. I was growing them in a 1:1 sphag/bark mix in a well-aerated (by my dremel tool) plastic pot.

I know you're not generally supposed to fertilize plants with bad roots, but since I have the opposite problem I was wondering if giving it some fertilizer would help grow it some new leaves? If so, what's a good proportion/schedule?

:) preemptive thanks for your help! :bowing

If you're seeing growth and it's not in bloom, IMO, you should be fertilizing weakly, weekly. If you can, please post a couple of photos so we can see what shape the plant is in. Photos can help other orchid lovers identify things that you might have missed so they're a great tool for getting help with problems on this forum.

I'm sorry that your mom hacked up your orchids. :(

Thanks for the tip RandomGemini! I'll go ahead and fertilize them. Here's a couple of pics-- there's like one useful leaf on each of them, and they're really pale looking.

Wow… she did a number on them, didn't she?

I'd say they probably weren't getting enough water and probably sunburned as a result of this (my daughter did this to her phals this summer too.) It does look like one is growing a new leaf, the other one though, hard to tell.

Yeah, family... gotta love them. :)

It's weird you mention they might be underwatered. The roots are literally breaking out of the pot, and they look pretty fat and happy... would they not shrivel back if they didn't get water?

I'm also a bit worried about the smaller one since she cut off the top leaf and I know phals grow from the top part. Is it still possible for it to have new growth, or did she damage it too much?

I don't know about that. I'm still pretty new at this hobby myself. So far, I haven't adopted a stray orchid with crown damage and I'm not 100% sure that the crown is damaged on your orchid, it's just that the leaves are a bit shorter than they used to be. LOL!

Phals tend to be pretty resilient, so I'm thinking it should bounce back as long as you have good root growth.

As far as under watered, if you put phals in stronger light than they are used to, and don't increase their waterings to compensate for the increased light and evaporation in their pot, that's how they get sunburned leaves… or at least, that's how my daughter did it.

You need to feed your orchids. That is why you got to give them fertilizer.
If the roots are good then you need not worry. The plant will produce new leaves provided you give it proper culture.
There is nothing you can do about the cut leaves. Although the burned leaves can develop fungi infestation if there is yellowing around the burnt areas, then you need to cut it off to save the healthy part of the leaves.
The way I look at your pictures, the plants are going to survive with its surviving leaves left and grow into a magnificent plant once again.