[Randy]

HW my Friend,

When I first started growing orchids I killed my fair share of roots. I killed some so badly I thought I should have killed the plants but some most of them lived to tell the tale another day.

The sphag and bag method didn't work for me. Never got a single new root using that method. Here's what I did. First I used nice sterile tools and cut off all those nasty mushy black/brown roots. I then hit all spots where there were cuts with cinnamon, the common kind you get at the grocery store in powdered form. If the plant had some live roots and they were wet I let it sit out for a day until it was dry.

Then I took the smallest clear plastic pot I could find or the smallest clay pot I could find. (The only problem with clay is you can't see the newly developing roots. and the only problem with the plastic pots are they are too deep and don't dry out very quickly.) You will need either some heavy duty string, fishing string or root clips appropriate for the pot for this to keep the plant in place or it will fall out of the new pot.

Fill the majority of the new pot with something that is going to drain really well, a good bark mix, or osmunda or tree fern, something that will drain really well, NOT sphagnum. You will use a little sphag, but not much. Take a small amount of slightly dampened sphagnum (use the mix from below 1 drop KLN/qt of water) and put the plant into this sphag pocket. Only the rizome, not the pseudobulb and lay it on top of what else you have put in your pot. Fasten it in place with either root clips or your heavy duty string, fishing string, etc. You can also mount the plant using this method with the sphag pad.

You will also need some KLN, available from dyna-gro. A great rooting hormone mixture. I got these tiny measuring spoons that really measure a pinch and a couple of other small amounts. I put one drop of KLN into a quart sprayer and use that. Use that sprayer to keep the sphag pad slightly damp.

Here is the most important part WATCH for root growth. Keep using the KLN mixture until you have lots of roots and new pb growths. Once you have lots of roots and some new pb's you can start fertilizing like a regular orchid again.

It's good to know how to save a plant. You learn a lot from the process.

Randy