Rescuing a phal

[bkim]

Dtps actually. I found a pitiful looking hybrid in my father in laws office. It has a spike with a pretty well developed keiki. It was completely dried out with 1/2 of the mother's leaves brown. The rest are very leathery and limp. There is a fair amount of good roots still so I have hope in restoring this one. I also found several mealies so I will have to treat it for that. I haven't rescued an orchid before so my plan is:

1) Cut off the spike and hope the keiki will survive on its own. It has two limp leaves but well developed roots.
2) Clean up the mother plant removing dead leaves and roots.
3) Repot both in pure sphag making sure they never dry out completely.


I'll post pictures once I get home.

[orchid_girl]

I would not pot it in total sphag...the roots tend to stay too wet for my taste...I prefer bark. Everything else sound good though. Good Luck!!

[bkim]

good point. I gotta get some bark then.

[norris]

I also would try to get the plant re-hydrated before removing the keiki, and repotting

[bkim]

So in my haste, I didn't take pictures =P I opened up the tightly packed sphag ball to reveal the entire root ball to be rotted. The only surviving roots were the aerials that almost immediately upon contact with water turned green. A good sign. Some of the roots were severely dried but not brown yet. I don't know how those will turn up. I gave the cleaned up plant a bath of rubbing alcohol and water to remove the mealies.

Today I checked the plant and the leaves seem to have firmed up, but they're still very leathery. I am concerned about rot and will be getting some bark soon. But for now, I think it's ok and allows it to rehydrate. Tomorrow I'll be checking the roots to see how they're doing.