Help me save my Cattleya :-(

[bunnylotus]

Okay, I'm embarrassed to have to describe what has happened but here it goes...

I purchased this Cattleya as a birthday present to myself from a nursery in Chicago and have since discovered and made some critical rookie missteps that have hurt the plant.

1) I tried to give it more sun / humidity. Our house gets 'ok light' but really not good enough for a Cattleya, so I put it out on our porch and... forgot about it. At the time it was in the morning and it was in the shade / indirect light, but we live in a high humidity warm climate, which I read can be good for these plants in the summer....again...if you don't forget about it. Well, the sun shifted and it scorched a whole bunch of leaves and the pot it was in, (black plastic) was so freaking hot when I collected it. IDIOT!

2) I probably should have repotted this plant when I received it because I have since discovered that the potting medium was so freaking old, rotted and decayed, and the root system was SO SO suffocated/tighlty wound around itself snd I now suspect that it has root rot.

3) In my attempt to inspect the plant I accidentally knocked a new growth and the new leaf broke off. WORTHLESS! I put cinnamon on the wound and it has dried up, but the pseudobulb is still there and it has an eye on it, so heres hoping.

Well, when the sunburn incident happened I took it inside, cried and cursed at myself lol, and then went to work. I sterilized my scissors and cut away any of the black dead leaf tissue (into healthy tissue below the scorch of course), and then used cinnamon to seal the cuts. Some of the leaves, which used to be huge, didn't have terrible spots so I left some of them alone so that the plant would still have leaves for photosynthesizing.

But...the stupid black spots and yellowing just kept spreading. Either on a leaf after I had already cut into or on one of the big leaves that I had left. So I removed some more of the leaf tissue. :-(

That clearly hasn't helped or stopped the issue. And then the plant got two new growths, (YAY), which haven't really grown or changed much in the past week - two weeks - (not yay?) - and I noticed that one of the new growths has some black / brownish parks on it...wondering if its from scrapes or any of the sap and now it's got some slight coloring on the leaves...praying this whatever it is hasn't spread!!!

Anyways, after seeing that I said screw it what is going on, and decided to remove the orchid from the pot and inspect the root system. Well, that's when I discovered the horrible potting job with the dead decayed sphagnum moss dead decayed plotting bark - so many dead roots brown black and mushy/stringy. I was watering the plant every ~10 days trying to get it to DRY completely before watering, but clearly since this thing had been packed so tightly my guess is between that + sunburn it was retaining water much more than I knew....

So after about 3-4 hours last week I tried to remove AS MUCH dead medium as possible and cut as many dead / mushy roots as possible - with a sterile blade. Because there were also so many roots in the pot and it was IMPOSSIBLE to trace to the source on the rhizome I couldn't really cut them all out of fear of cutting a lifeline to one of the healthy / live roots up top. You'll see the attached pictures for reference. Anyways, I let the guy air out for about a week and then tried to give it some water today hence why the roots look wet in the photos.

I noticed now that part of the rhizome base (probably the original base and pseudobulbs) are black at the tip and are yellowing...GREAT! Obviously not ALL of the rhizome and pseudobulbs are yellow/black as you can see by the newer growths and other bulbs up top. But this concerns me greatly. And I just have no idea as to what to do.

I so desperately want to save this plant. It is my only cattleya and is probably the nicest thing I own. I'm so mad at myself for all of the missteps but I know I have to chalk it up to experience now. I just hope that in that I can still save the plant. Does anyone have any idea as to what is going on with the orchid? Is it savable? Is it dying? Do I need to remove that part of the rhizome / yellowing pseudobulbs? I also really don't want to cause more trauma to this poor plant.

I'm currently waiting for a new clear pot to arrive and leca medium so I can place it in a bigger and more comfortable air medium so this whole over packing situation doesn't happen again. It's supposed to arrive tomorrow.

Anyways I welcome all feedback and next step advice from all you Cattleya/orchid experts. I have about 20 orchids in my house, but this is the only cattleya and I really want to nurse it back to health. Please take a look at the photos and let me know what you think I should do!

Thank you all so very much!

bunnylotus

p.s. this Cattleya is the - Thi-Ti 'Sweetheart' (Miniature) 6" - I purchased when it was not in bloom, but it was/is a mature plant. If I can save it I know the flowers will be stunning - key word if :-(