My grandma wanted to throw it away, but I’m trying to save it.
It was in a horrible condition, having ALL potted roots being rotten away to mush, and severely dehydrated, with completely limb leaves.
My GF said it probably couldn’t be saved, but out of spite I will convince her she’s wrong ;)
Here’s how it looked like when I got it:
I of course removed all dead stuff and repotted it into LECA.
I then put it into this box, with a bag of moist LECA in it to increase the humidity, sprayed some water into the box, put a small fan in it for air circulation (risk of crown rot?) and misted it with some diluted fertilizer.
This was two days ago, here’s how it looks like now:
The lower leaves are still leathery and limb, and will probably be lost when regrowing the roots, but especially the upper parts look way better than before.
I think I might actually be successful, but let’s see. Phals are relatively robust, but it really looks stressed.
Anyone out there with similar stories and experiences? How would you estimate this situation?
Definitely already looking better! Plants are super resilient!
I also recently got a half dead orchid at a plant swap that I am nursing back to health. It has one leaf left and one baby one coming in. Had to cut off so many bad roots but it looks like it’s bouncing back.
Bright indirect light and it will survive. My belief is to cut most fertilizer until there is active growth. I saved some plants like that in the past with leca. The lower leafs won’t ever look nice again but it looks like you achieved water balance. Good work!
100%! Despite their reputation for being fickle, I found phalaenopsis (phalaenopsii? phalaenopsises?) to be pretty hardy.
