To start, just remove all the obviously dead/broken useless roots and see what you are left to work with.

If it has live aerial roots do not try to put then in the mix, though you might have to do a slight tidy up.....all live roots are valuable.

If the plant is going back to its original home, try to copy the original mix.

Thank you for your reply! The original mix looked like a combination of commercial potting soil and some very coarse bark chips. Maybe the soil-like component was even completely decomposed fine bark chips??? I was planning to use what I have all my phals in: 1cm/3/8” pine bark with some coarse perlite. Would that be ok?

Mix looks OK to me......

Mixes vary according to growing conditions and phalaenopsis are not widely grown here by orchid society members.....I am growing a few indoors, but they are difficult compared to other orchids that spend all year outside.

Climate Zone 10b is very different to Zone 5. Posted to get you started. Fine tuning needed from real orchid growers.

Thank you. That is funny, phalaenopsis are considered the easiest orchids here. You can buy them in supermarkets or wherever plants are sold, and many people manage to grow them as house plants.

gdinie, did you ever get more help with this Phal? From maybe a local orchid person? Maybe someone else on this Forum can help?

No, I removed everything dead and broken, and used a larger container for all those roots, with a bark based mix. As far as I know it is doing fine, but I haven’t seen it recently. Thank you for following up.

Thank you for that update in Ontario, my late father-in-law's birthplace.

gdinie, it was generous of you to gift it to someone else -- how lucky they are.

Thank you, Pat, but it was actually a friend’s orchid. She had it from her grandfather, and it is supposed to be 30 or 40 years old, so I was a bit hesitant about tackling it. Not something you can replace from the supermarket flower shop ;-).

I hope you can take another picture and show it to us some day. I suspect it is thriving.