Help! Orchid roots look funny
 

I'm a pretty big orchid newbie, I give my plants the very basic care. Anyways, I decided to repot my Phal for the first time because its been in the same pot for at least a year and a half.. I thought it was really healthy looking, the leaves were nice looking, but when I took it out of the pot, the roots were all brown and dead looking! I don't know what is wrong with it, or how to treat it!

They look real dry to me, but good news: they aren't rotted! Give 'em more water. Actually you can soak the whole plant in water out of it's pot and probably see the roots flush out and turn green. They need to turn back to white normally before watering again.

Yeah sometimes with my phals I put a stopper in the sink and fill it up and just put the whole plant in there for a few hours. I've heard that the leaves can soak up water too so I ususally submerge them as well and they seem to like it. Just make sure that once you pot it back up, you let it dry out before watering again. They seem to like to be soaked and dry, soaked and dry, mimicking what I would guess would be the natural conditions in the forest where it rains and then the sun comes out and then it rains again.

I am taking this from another post - this is a great synopsis on orchid root health in general - Roots

Thanks, Dorothy, for the Roots post. Very interesting, expecially with photos. :)

:waving You are very welcome :)

Awesome, I'm so happy that my orchid is a okay :D .. kinda

Hi, Dorothy. I am getting an error when I click your link, and a request for a username. Can you re-post the link?

Me too...I'd like to see this site....thanks Dorothy..

:hmm - The link doesn't seem to be working anymore :_(