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Grocery Store Phalaenopsis - to save or not :-(

5 years ago
last modified: 5 years ago

My daughter received a very small grocery store Phalaenopsis for Mother's Day. She is not a plant person, so she bought it to me for rescue repotting. However I have little knowledge about orchids, and this guy is not in good shape. I thought this would be a simple fix of repotting it in some chunky orchid mix (bark, perlite, some charcoal). At first glance it looks so pretty, but there are problems. I removed the hunk of decorative moss that was on top of the roots to see what was what. The first thing I saw was a lot of mold on the roots right under the decorative moss. It is in a tiny translucent plastic pot with no holes for air circulation or drainage. The roots are jammed (and I really do mean jammed) into this tiny pot with soaked sphagnum moss tightly pushed into every nook and cranny around the roots. I can see some green roots through the pot but also a lot of dead roots. I've yet to pull it out of the pot (just got it to my care last night). Because of the mold, I thought I would check here before going any further with it. Considering the mold and the abuse it has had, is it rescuable? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks so much!

UPDATE: I just went ahead and pulled it out of the pot. Oh geeze!! Yes there are green roots but every one of them is rotted at the base where they emerge from the plant. So I am guessing that part of the plant is rotted too. The roots and the plant are all black where they connect. I think this is past helping. :-(

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