Potting or mounting phal keiki with aerial roots

[WaterWitchin]

Whether aerial roots will rot depends. Like Camille says, you move aerial roots all into sphagnum, they won't adapt well. You move them into semi-hydro, they won't adapt well. There are ways around it, but we don't know what tmoney's plant looks like yet... sounds sort of like a bunch of basal keikis all wound up together maybe? Maybe basal keikis that have been growing that way a looong time, thus aren't really keikis anymore. Who knows?

We don't know what media tmoney wants to grow in either. It would be best to see what he has and what he wants to do before offering too many options. And if tmoney has four plants (keikis) all wrapped up together in aerial roots and none in media, that's still a whole different scenario to give good advice. Plus says there aren't any basal roots, which makes no sense to me. His comment about not wanting the roots to rot is likely based on the fact he's a fairly new grower, and not quite understanding the subtleties of doing this yet.

That's my so far.

[tmoney]

hey all,


sorry to mods, and anyone else on the board. im starting to realize i can jack threads

but wow, i appreciate all the perspectives, and my take away right now is pot it up in our usual stuff, don’t drown it and all should be good! here’s a pic of the plant in question. not a great pic, but what i can do right now with the ipad and light. i think ill start soaking some bark and pot it up tomorrow....

edit, there’s about this many roots you can’t see on the backside. and of course i suck and didn’t get the yellowing leaf tips too well

[Shadeflower]

tmoney, don't worry about posting random stuff.
I'd like to think that is one of the good things about OB.

There's anothe forum that is very strict, it is frowned upon to post something not related.

Here it is much more relaxed and far more information gets posted a a result. You can either take that as a good thing or a bad thing. I'd like to think it's a good thing.

[WaterWitchin]

Originally Posted by tmoney

...sorry to mods, and anyone else on the board. im starting to realize i can jack threads

tmoney... I only moved your comment to its own thread, because it was a good question, and wanted you to get responses specific to your inquiry. The other thread was more of a general topic. I very rarely do that, but believed it was for your benefit...certainly not a chastisement. It is also a good question for someone else who's a newer grower, and I didn't want it lost in the shuffle, so put it somewhere it could be more readily found. If hijacking were a crime here, I'd have already been strung up and buried.

That's one beast of a keiki. It came to you mounted, and appears to have been growing that way for awhile. To me it looks more like a phal that maybe started out as a keiki, but has become a mounted phal. I still don't quite get it. It's probably just a lack of communication by misunderstanding your terminology.

Originally Posted by tmoney

...edit to now include a pic of the potted plant. 5 stems and a whole mess of very long roots in there. yes, a few broke while potting....and you can see better the yellowing that is happening, and hence my sense of urgency!

Five stems? Do you mean five leaves? Five crowns? And if five crowns, you potted them up all together? I'm still not following, and am curious to know.

It appears to be potted up well. Wouldn't worry about the yellow leaf... probably just wasn't getting enough water, or was going to lose the leaf anyway due to age.

[tmoney]

Originally Posted by WaterWitchin

tmoney... I only moved your comment to its own thread, because it was a good question, and wanted you to get responses specific to your inquiry. The other thread was more of a general topic. I very rarely do that, but believed it was for your benefit...certainly not a chastisement. It is also a good question for someone else who's a newer grower, and I didn't want it lost in the shuffle, so put it somewhere it could be more readily found. If hijacking were a crime here, I'd have already been strung up and buried.

That's one beast of a keiki. It came to you mounted, and appears to have been growing that way for awhile. To me it looks more like a phal that maybe started out as a keiki, but has become a mounted phal. I still don't quite get it. It's probably just a lack of communication by misunderstanding your terminology.



Five stems? Do you mean five leaves? Five crowns? And if five crowns, you potted them up all together? I'm still not following, and am curious to know.

It appears to be potted up well. Wouldn't worry about the yellow leaf... probably just wasn't getting enough water, or was going to lose the leaf anyway due to age.

hey ww! well i just realized in the last couple weeks how much of a rambler i am on this forum. and i feel bad about steering convos away from the op. so you were right to move it, no offense taken and i really appreciate all the responses!

your confusion is due to my own lack of knowledge! so we got the keiki along with 2 others, and they were cut from the flower spike and shipped bare root. but it is a monster, you’re right about that. i put it on the mount as a temporary solution till it started pushing new basil roots. the roots it has all come from the same growth point (the base?), and there are 5 crowns ? all growing from a single base. they just diverged and each have a growing stem with about 3 or 4 leaves each. but they diverge so close together at the base i can’t separate them and they all share the same bunch of roots. it’s definitely a unique situation for us in phals. yes, this is a phal, a fasciata.

[Mr.Fakename]

I rarely get keikis, but when the time comes to pot 'em up, I consider them as normal plants. As such, they're potted and watered like everybody else.

Camille sent me a bunch of seedlings this spring, they went from open air in her apartment to S/H in my terrarium; they didn't lose a root.
I'll agree that the #1 thing for successful adaptation is choosing an airy medium.

[tmoney]

ok, its potted up now! i was gonna wait till this afternoon, but decided to do it with my morning coffee. thanks for the input all, and if it dies im blaming you guys, hahahahah.

yanon, im not sure i understand the photo link thing. it doesnt do anything when i tap it....but thanks!

edit to now include a pic of the potted plant. 5 stems and a whole mess of very long roots in there. yes, a few broke while potting....and you can see better the yellowing that is happening, and hence my sense of urgency!

[YetAnotherOrchidNut]

The picture thing was me being stupid. Never mind. :-)

Good luck with your keiki!

[Roberta]

Some Phals do tend to form clumps, and this appears to be one of them. So those basal growths are not keikis (separate plants) but rather part of the mother plant... sending out new basal growths is one of the ways that a monopodial orchid can perpetuate itself. Eventually, all of them likely will do this... I have never seen a 10 foot/3 meters tall Phalaenopsis. Most Vandas (same growth pattern) will do the same... maybe get taller than the max for a Phal, but they have limits too before they start making new basal growths.

[WaterWitchin]

It’s pretty cool, as the most I’ve seen one do that is a double. Then again, I don’t grow many Phals. I really kinda want to get my hands on it and examine closely!