Hi, I have been reading through some posts and have seen some helpful advice but wanted to check with kind experts here what I should do to save my poor Phal. For context, I have not been looking after it properly for quite a long time due to poor mental health. I would really like to save it and feel sorry for it, it was a present to me from a friend. Please see photos attached of what it looks like now. Any advice would be much appreciated, thank you!
Previously (a few years ago) it was starting to get root rot and I got rid of the potting medium and let it sit in a transparent orchid pot with holes on the sides with the roots naked but I'm afraid I didn't water it enough.
Recently in the last few weeks the leaves started going yellow and dropping off one by one, until now there is just one sad leaf left. Most of the roots except 3 are shrivelled up and I don't know if they are dead or not. There is one root you can see from the photos that’s kind of hanging from a dark thread in the middle of it but the root itself is mostly detached, is this normal?
I had a go at repotting it yesterday and saw that there was white fluffy looking mould on the bottom part and on some of the roots, so I cut the bottom off and some of the roots. I filled a new pot with new
potting mix and also diluted a few drops of
orchid feed in filtered tap water and poured it into the pot, and poured more filtered water to drench the medium. I left it soaking overnight and had a look again this morning, but found the fuzzy white mould growing on the dead leaf sheaths so I got worried and took out all the potting mix (which was still damp) and as per a comment I saw on this forum, I cut away as much of the dead leaf sheaths on the plant as I could to avoid more mould growth.
I also saw that there was some black parts on the bottom middle of the plant, I don’t know if it is mould or not but it was not there when I repotted it and it’s not from the potting mix. The shrunken roots did not change shape with the soaking even though they all looked green.
I repotted it again but this time just sprinkled a layer of mix on the bottom of the pot and let the plant sit on top so that I could see all the roots, and let some of the roots touch the mix or be slightly covered. I bought a small spray bottle to mist the top roots with water in the mornings, I did see some people say not to do that to avoid mould on the crown but is it ok to keep doing this to give it some more moisture?
It is sitting in the kitchen and not in direct sunlight but gets a decent amount of light from the windows, and humidity is roughly 50-55% from the dehumidifier in the corridor leading to kitchen, not sure about the kitchen itself. The temperature is quite mild (based in London, UK), it was really warm last week and I suspect it got even more dehydrated than normal.
I hope this is enough info but let me know if you have questions and thanks for any help!
Help save my Phal - dropped all but one leaf, shrunken roots, mould
Linear Mode
