My love of orchids started 9 years ago, when I went to my first flower show in Philadelphia, PA and purchased a Dendrobium. Every year after that I would try to make it to the annual flower show to find that special orchid that would catch my eye. By 2002 I had collected about 8 different types of orchids, but at the same time that year, I was moving to Atlanta so I ask my sister to help me take care of them. (Thinking if I can grow them, then she should be able too also.) I couldn't part with two of my prized orchids a Phal.(which I forgot the name) and an Ascda. Princess Mikasa 'Sapphire'. I fell in love with the vibrant violet color and couldn’t part with it. So I packed up the orchids to take them with me on the airplane. So far they are doing fabulously, growing and flowering for me. But the other orchids I let behind with my sister all died. I think she over watered them. In Atlanta picked up two more orchids a Cattleya and Paph both died from lack of attention due to a newborn baby. In 2006 I went to the Philadelphia Flower Show again and walked around in search of that special orchid. My husband saw a beautiful orchid specimen that was display in a corner behind other orchids. What caught his eye was this beautiful red color that stood out like a sore thumb. My husband said he could see it from my eyes that this was the ONE! A Pot. Red Heart ‘Neptune’ purchased at Silva Orchids booth for $200. It had 4 spikes and 5 flowers on each one and 11 pseudobulbs. We both enjoyed watching the flowers bloom and die off. Around that time we were moving again and we left the orchid behind at my father in-law’s house temporarily until we got settled. When it was time to collect it, to my husband's surprise he could not find it. When my husband asked his father where it was he said, “OH, I saw that the plant wasn’t doing so good in the bedroom so I took it out side and planted it in the backyard.” When my husband called me to tell me that I flipped out, (He did too.) but I realized his father was just trying to help. So I just told him that it had to come out of the ground as soon as possible but it was dark already and had to wait to the next day. The Red Heart spent a day and a night in soil and was dug up. I told my husband he had to go buy fresh orchid medium and clear out all the old medium and dirt, rinse it then repot it. All he heard was buy medium and repot it. Two weeks later the orchid made it back to me and it didn’t look to good. The pseudobulbs were starting to shrivel up and the leaves looked like leather. I was getting worried about the plant but had a trip that morning and thought I would take care of it when I got back in two weeks. When I got back I watered the orchid, thinking it was just a little dry out. A week later I then realized my husband pot the orchid all wrong. The leads was against the side so I emptied out the medium and saw that the old medium was never cleared out and the roots were all rotted. I had to cut off all the roots and three pseudobulbs because it had black rot on them. Worried I order live sphag. moss and repotted it. I later read in the AOS orchid forum that I need to use fungicide on the roots to clear up the root rot. So I order Rootone and sprinkled it on the roots and repotted again. It has been a week since I did that and I wanted to see what progress the Rootone was having. I removed the sphag. and to my surprise the roots were looking better and I saw baby roots growing on the back bulbs and new roots growing from the new lead. The Pot. still looks dry up, but today there is a glimmer of hope that the orchid can survive this. Crossing my fingers and hoping everything is going to turn out for the better. I’ll post my progress as time goes by and maybe I can post pics too. I'm not sure how to do that yet because I am newbie to this forum.