Sick Dendrobium

[Orchid_lady]

Hi everyone. It has been a while since I bought a dendrobium from a flea market. Since I don't know alot about orchids I bought one that was really big with 3 canes & blooming. The bad thing was that it was potted in a very small pot and roots were sticking out alot. Anyway I repotted it in a bigger pot and I saw that it had root rot so I tried to remove almost all the bad roots. Still all lof the plant has root rot because the roots are dark soft mushy, they fall easily. I dont know if the plant is dead or not but it is still green. Can I save it? Or should I just trash it? I posted pics of the plant to give you an idea.

[Cynthia, Prescott, AZ]

We are currently at the season where the phal dens like you have are going to produce new growths with roots starting about a month later from the new growth. What you need to do is to keep the plant from dehydrating excessively until the new roots start. It looks a little tall for the usual sphag & (Zip-lock) bag treatment. But something similar would work. I would go ahead and pot the plant up in your choice of mix, water the mix well, then put a baggy big enough to cover plant and pot, maybe a dry cleaner bag, over the plant and pot, and put the plant in bright, but NOT direct light. Then just wait. Check the pot every so often to see if it is drying out and rewater. The watering is to create humidity, but you could leave the pot dry and put a dish of wet moss next to the plant, inside the baggy, for humidity, and keep that wet. Use a small pot. Dens like to be under potted, and it helps them to dry out faster, preventing future root rot. Cynthia, Prescott, AZ

Make sure you give the plant lots of light, but don't put it in direct sun while it's in the baggie.

[jerrymeola]

Dendrobiums like to be very pot bound and not repotted very often. Repotting to a larger pot was not a good idea.

I have a plant with ten large (24" canes) and 4 keikis to 16 inches growing over the side and it is still in its 5 inch pot for 4 years now. It blooms for 9 months every year.

Those air roots you had coming out of the pot were the ones keeping the plant going.