Maybe not crown rot??

[musicts]

So I just replaced the potting medium... wow was it wet and awful. So what will happen to the yellow leaves now? Is there anything else I should do? It has lots of leaves, and the top ones aren't really THAT damaged, so I'm hopeful...

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

Do nothing. You've done all you can do. Just grow the plant. Hopefully it will make an expedient recovery.

[musicts]

Ok... thanks so much for all your help!!

[lostonthebeach]

Keep us up to date of its progress.

[musicts]

Thanks, I will! Keep your fingers crossed!

[james mickelso]

It just sounds like most problems with newly acquired phals. Commercially grown in a warm moist environment, in spagnum, with lots and lots of air movement, and now it has little or no air movement and stays too wet. First off, get some air movement like a little fan blowing across the room and next ,don't water it for at least a week. Let it dry out. In fact if you can take it out of the wet media, that will help out a lot. Have you taken it out of the pot all together? Made sure there was no longer any spagnum moss tangled in the roots? Then repotted it in bark? Or bark with a lot of fine material in it? If it has started to rot, get it to dry out. Rot will not grow without the affected area being wet. It won't hurt it to dry out but continuing to keep it wet, or even moist, will deteriorate it even further. Phals are very resilient. They can go without water for a lot longer than most folks realize. You can go so far as to get it out of the potting media all together and just hang it by it's leaves in a mason jar or large glass with a little water in the bottom. Just for humidity. If you are careful you might be able to keep the blooms. But at this point from your description, do you want the plant, or do you want to keep the flowers? Your choice. Yellow roots are not good. They can be saved but may be too far gone. So your choices are limited. I would opt for helping heal the plant. If the tips of the roots are turning yellow but there is a fair amount of good white/green root above the yellowing, then cut the root above the yellowing and treat the end of the root with cinnamon powder. Just the ends. Cut off any grey or blackened roots. Hang the plant by putting it in a large jar and resting the leaves on the mouth of the jar. It can be a pail or whatever but should not have holes in the bottom. Pour in a little water but not touching the roots. Mist it with water daily especially the undersides of the leaves where the stoma are located and especially in the morning. Place it where it is warm. Medium light will work well. The leaves will photosynthesize the starches in the bottom leaves and they will wrinkle. In a short time, new roots will start to grow and you can repot it. The blooms are using valuable energy and I'd cut them off. 1 Inch long. Let us know what you decide to do.

[musicts]

Hey, well that plant is still alive. I haven't cut off the flowers yet, but I will do so some time this weekend. It's dropped two blooms and two buds. The bottom leaves are yellow, but haven't dropped yet. It still has green roots, and one leaf that hasn't been affected at all, and one that just has a tiny bit of yellow. Anything else I can do for it? Should I go ahead and cut off the flowers?

[musicts]

Also, what is ideal humidity for orchids? We are having a cool damp spell here now, which is likely not helping my poor plant. In fact, I hadn't watered any of my plants for a week and they were still damp today.

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

If you haven't already removed the flower spike on a stressed out orchid, I highly recommend you doing so. Flowering takes a lot of energy away from the plant's ability to recover from stressors.

Different orchids have different tolerances to humidity levels. The reason being is that different orchids can come from vastly different habitats from one another. There is essentially no such thing as an "all inclusive, ideal humidity for all orchids". Not all orchids come from tropical rainforests. The US has quite a few native orchids growing here, and they're not necessarily all in Florida or some of the southern most regions of some of the southern states either. Some orchids actually grow in semi-arid deserts, for example.

For Phals moderate to high humidity is ideal, and it is discussed in the sticky "The Phal abuse ends here".

[musicts]

Hey, so when I remove the spike, do I cut it all the way down? How do I go about this?