Newbie Here! Lots of Questions about my new phal

[china_pearl]

Hello all,

I just bought a Phal Tsuei You Beauty "Matou" at Trader Joe's yester, and I have tons of questions regarding how to care for it...

First of all, 2 of the 4 flowers starting to wilt already!!! Obviously I don't know how long they have been blooming, so it's possible that they are just ending their bloom. But I worry that I might have done something to cause the wilting... I mean, the flowers didn't look, or least I didn't notice them being wilty when I got them...

I have read some instructions on how to care for phals, but I am still confused, so here are my questions:

1) How do I know whether it's a young plant or not? It's about 14" tall, top to bottom.

2) It's in a 2 1/2" pot now, do I need to repot it now?

3) How can i tell whether it's a healthy plant? I picked this particular plant because of its color and didn't pay any attention to any signs of problem... The leaves of my phal seem thick and supple, in a not too dark but not exactly bright green. There are not yellowing or spots on them. There are also a few thick, plump roots sticking out, some of them dried/wilted at the tips, while others seem to be growing still (they have green tips).

4) What are the signs of rotting roots? The plant is in some kind of bark medium, and it's moist at the bottom. I did water it when I got home, but most of the water leaked out because of the holes in the pot. I can see some of the roots, and they mostly look green and plumb.

5) Could chaning in temp. cause the wilting flowers? I set it outside yesterday in the shaded part of my deck, west facing, but not direct sun to the plant. Then I took it inside to a east facing window (no sun at all) at night since its gets pretty cold at night here in Portland. Today I took it out to the deck again for a few hours but noticed the wilty flowers, so I brought it back in again now. I wonder if this has caused the flowers to wilt?

6) Should I feed my phal now? if not, when should I feed it?

Sorry for all the questions and littles details... I'm just a bit freaked out by the "high maintenance" of orchids. I had an orchid before and ended up killing it. I don't want to be an "orchid killer" anymore...

Any advice is appreciated. Thank you much in advance!

[Cynthia, Prescott, AZ]

Phals like to be warm. Your outside temps might be just a little low. Environment, especially a change in it, can be the cause of flowers wilting. I think you need to leave this plant alone in a spot with very bright, but indirect light. Constantly changing the environment could be stressful. Don't woory about losing a few flowers. If you want to learn how to grow it, and you are successful, there will be flowers again this winter or even sooner if the plant decides to make new branches off of the old flower spike.

Fertilize every other watering, with balanced fetilizer at 1/4 to 1/2 strength of what ever it says on the label, unless it is orchid food where they have already changed the label.

If you plant is blooming, it is a mature plant, which doesn't mean it can't get larger. I would not go over a 4" pot, unless this gets to be one of those monsters that have some of the big leaved Phals in their ancestry.

Watering an orchid means running a lot of water thru the pot until the bark gets saturated, and then wait for the bark to get very close to dry before watering again. You can water the plant, then dump a cup of fert. solution in after you are done. Look at some of the old posts on using bamboo skewers. Cynthia, Prescott, AZ