Yellow leaves on my Phal

[AThoele]

Hi, all! I recently received my first orchids as a wedding gift. We would really like these orchids to survive, but it doesn't look good right now. The leaves have begun to turn yellow and a couple have fallen off. One of the leaves that is turning yellow began with a large black spot on the leaf.

I recently repotted the orchids and most of the roots were mushy. There were only a few remaining roots that hadn't yet begun to rot. I removed the rotting roots, but I'm not sure if there is anything else I can do to nurse the orchids back to health and do my best to help them survive.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!<br><br>Post edited by: AThoele, at: 2009/06/15 23:12

[AThoele]

Here are some pictures of my poor orchids...<br><br>Post edited by: AThoele, at: 2009/06/15 23:22

[AThoele]

One more try...

[AThoele]

another

[AThoele]

and one more<br><br>Post edited by: AThoele, at: 2009/06/15 23:28

[AThoele]

Sorry for all the posts! I guess I'm not very good at posting pictures!

[bree]

They look pretty bad but i'd cut all the flower spikes off the plants close to the base(there just using energy from the plant).
So you repotted them and cut all the rotted roots off. Was there any roots left on them after that?
I'd take them out of the pots you have them in and put them into shallow(small as possible) plastic orchid pots with great drainage.

[AThoele]

Thanks, bree. I was afraid that they were as bad as I thought!

I cut the flower spike down this morning. Unfortunately, as I was doing this, the leaf that was completely yellow fell off. There were a few short roots left after I cut off the rotted ones.

I'll move it back into the clear plastic pot. Any suggestions for this? It was in moss when I moved it on Saturday and it's currently in bark. Is this better than the moss? Is there anything in particular I need to do while I'm repotting?

Thank you!

[arezanda]

How is your Orchid doing Athoele? I just got my first Orchid also and I'm very nervous about it, I feel for you, Hope it is getting better!

[AThoele]

Arezanda -

Unfortunately they aren't doing too well. They have only one leaf each and pretty much no roots. I sprayed the roots with fungicide, soaked them in root hormone, and moved them into very small ceramic orchid pots (my local nursery didn't have any clear plastic pots with drain holes) and repotted them into a coarse bark mix. One has a new leaf that started coming in before all the repotting and it looks like it is still growing, although it is doing so quite slowly. I'm making sure to wait until the bark is totally dry to water them. I don't know whether they'll recover, but I'm determined to keep trying! Good luck with your new orchid!

By the way, since my last post I've purchased three beautiful new orchids (which I repotted immediately to get them out of the moss, which caused the root rot on my first orchids) and they're doing really well!