Can this orchid be saved??
 

Hi all,

It may not have been the best decision, but I left my boyfriend in charge of my orchid while I went away for a year for school. When I came back, I saw that most of the roots were rotted. :shock:

I cut away all the rotted roots and applied a bit of cinnamon to them. All that's left are these 3 small root-looking things that look a little different from normal roots. It looks like there's plastic wrap over it or some kind of covering, similar to those english cucumbers packaged at the grocery store (Does anyone know what they are?)

On a better note, that new leaf that's growing from the crown has gotten bigger since I've been here.

Is this orchid salvageable? Are these 3 root-things enough to keep it alive? Thanks for any advice! :)

Hello and welcome to the OB.
Is this orchid salvageable? Are these 3 root-things enough to keep it alive? Yes and Yes.
I think he did a really good job for someone who is taking care of an orchid, specially when it's not his hobby and I think you should reward him :)
Seriously though I've saved orchids in a LOT worse shape than that. I can't even say there's anything wrong with it now that you took the bad roots off.

I don't see why not..mine had no roots at all now has only 2 :(..There's alot more experienced peeps here than me for sure, but it still looks not too bad. Hopefully someone will chime in because i am i need of some help too..my post is further down :( Goodluck!

100% savable. An OB search on the search engine will pull a bazillion posts on how to grow Phals.

Any specific questions, don't hesitate to ask. :)

Thank you everyone! This is great news! :)

I've moved it into a small plastic see-through cup and added some cork bark to it with a thin layer of spagh moss on top.

I looked up that these 3 silvery roots are called aerial roots with velamen. My question is whether these aerial roots always supposed to be above the bark and do they require different amounts of watering? It seems like they would dry out a lot faster than non-aerial roots.

Here's a link describing velamen for anyone interested: Orchid roots with velamen

Oh and it turns out the bf was a little overzealous about watering but he did do a good job in keeping it alive haha =)

In the wild, the roots are always "aerial".

The roots attach to the tree trunk/branches or rock (if they're lithophytic). If there's moss on the trees or rocks, the roots grow over that. Usually there's not a whole lot of moss growing on the trees that Phals grow on, if any at all.

In potted culture, there's not much of a choice. You can push the roots out towards the inner lining of the clear pot to mimic what it goes through in the wild.

make sure there are drainage holes in the cup you potted it in!

Ditto the drainage holes... make sure you have drainage otherwise you will get more problems.

All orchid roots have velamen but as the root grows the velamen takes on different caracturistics depending on the conditions the root is in. This means that arial roots which are generally dry have a different texture velamen to non-arial ones. On one of my Phals there are some arial roots which are different again because I spray them regularly.

You have to be a little careful potting arial roots, because the velamen is adapted for arial growth it will not do so well potted. Having said that I have found that if you pot them just under the surface and make sure they dry regularly they can do quite well potted and if they are the only roots you have then I would be inclined to either pot them or ensure they are laying touching the surface so that they can get the advantage of the moisture in the medium.