Naturally, it's my nicest plant that's having issues. I'd noticed for a while that it wasn't looking happy, and finally decided to check the roots. Half of them were dead - and they were in good shape this summer when I last repotted it. I suspect the medium I had was too fine - it's a two fan plant, one fan previously bloomed, and the roots were pretty large - fit a good 4 inch round counter. Well, half those roots are now dead. I repotted with part chc and part seedling mix, and a little sphag too, and I suspect the entire thing got too wet. I'm wondering to what to do now. The plant now will fit in a 3 inch square pot. I've been reading up online and saw some mentions (by Tanaka) or repotting with lava on the bottom and NZ sphag on top. Others say chc, others say sphag and charcoal, etc.

Taking into account that not all the roots are dead, but a lot are, and there are no new roots visible, how should I repot this? I'm growing under flurorescents, humdity is low now but will be around 50% when my humidifier arrives. Temps between 63F low and 80F high.

Should I just repot this in coarse chc, or should I use sphag and the lava and treat it like a plant that's in recovery? The second growth has been growing since early this summer, so it's relatively new, but still not seeing new roots.

Thanks guys

Try and use the sphag and bag method. Good luck!

if you go the sphag and lava route, use the best water you possibly can. Lava rock is evil (for people with no rain or RO water).

For me, whether I move it to sphag or a normal mix depends on how much root there is. None=sphag, a few=regular mix. I dome (instead of literally bagging) if the humidity is low and there is clearly not enough root to support the foliage.

If you think 100% sphag on top is too dense, there are always ways to lighten it up a bit - may be better to do so if you are going to dome/bag it.

Well I'm not going to bag it because whenever I've tried that in the past, I've gotten rot, mold, etc. I decided to try Tanaka's idea about lava on the bottom half, then set the plant on top, the put sphag gently all around, a bit tighter at the base of the plant. I've had great luck with spahg reviving a few other plants, and the roots aren't all lost, yet, but all of them lost a good portion of what they had. I'll have to see what I can do to help dome the plant a bit - like I said, the bag thing was always bad news for me.

open top jar or bag might work well - protects from too much wind etc

Personally - if it has some viable roots, I'd just repot in a fresh mix you know works for you and wait for new roots. In my experience, repotting alone, as long as there are *some* roots works just fine! Make sure you water thoroughly and frequently. Good luck!

Hmmmm

After 4 years growing Paphs I don't yet consider myself experienced/qualified enough to give a definitive answer to this thorny question. The best answer I can give relates to my Spring replanting. Amongst the many plants I have, one is an primary Paph esquirolei by mastersianum. Over Winter it put on two leaves and looked reasonably happy.

When I repotted it all I saw were root stubs barely half an inch long. The mix was "slightly" deteriated but not saturated to any huge degree. I've repotted it in a much more aerated mix (similar to my complexes) and it still looks much the same. New leaf since repotting now 2plus inches long.

I dunno - repot in the mix that works for you and see what happens. A suggestion though - rinse the roots thouroughly in case of parasite or some other form of controlable infestation.

Cheers
Stephan

Tanaka's site says to water sparingly for the first month. I know with some orchids, like catts, they recommend holding off a week or two. Heather, you're saying water a lot. I was thinking, since I still have some roots left, to watch the watering for a bit, no?

By the way, I'm just going to assume I over-watered. When you underwater, and roots die, would they tend to look the same, be squishy, etc once wet?

hey John,
roots dead from underwatering are also squishy when wet and generally indistinguishable from overwatered roots. However, in the case of paphs, I've found that underwatered roots tend to be noticeably thinner.

I always read that too John, but I have had issues with that method.

I personally find with my mix that if the roots are allowed to dry out (in a mix that is not accustomed to holding water (yes I soak first but I find it takes a few weeks for the mix to adjust) they won't continue to grow and the plant will "flop" so I make sure I water well after re-potting for several weeks and the root growth generally picks up. Not sopping wet, but I keep the mix moist.

FWIW, I also water newly repotted paphs after a few days. If I am not using s/h I use a mix of bark/sphag/perlite. I soak it in KLN or Superthrive, and the sphag will hold enough water to stay moist for a few days, but the bark and perlite makes it more airy and tends to dry out quicker than straight sphag, so I go ahead and water after about 3 days even though it is freshy repotted. I have had no ill effects, in fact the contrary. The only one I with held watering was my erwinia infected paph. It had plenty of good roots, but I thought it needed to dry out. I didn't water it for a week and now I am watering it again. It is doing fine as far as I can see above ground. I only have 2 paphs in CHC and that is a maliponese and a Delanati seedling...they are both very happy. I witheld watering them for a week too, because I think CHC holds alot of water for a longer time than my bark/sphag mix. It also makes a difference if you use a clay or plastic pot. Clay dries out much faster.

Just this past weekend at our show I saw anolder member who has been growing paphs.for forty years and has a wonderful collection with a large bag of spag. I asked him why the spag. because he uses a method I've never seen anyone else use well his reply was for plants that are losing roots or any plant you want to make a comback he puts in spag till it grows new roots and is growing healthy again but he dosen't keep it there for good. Take it for what it's worth. Ray

This is all really useful, thanks everybody.

Hey John, what did you decide to do and how the plant doing now?

Kyle

Hello John:
I would pot the plant in a mixture of bark, perlite, charcoal, and sphagnum mixture. I would use fine bark and large grade perlite #4. I think the roots might be suffocating from not enough aeration. I had grown seedlings in a mixture of coconut husk and sphagnum moss. It was a mistake to not pot the seedlings after a year. All the new roots became dead and the new roots where stunted. The new leaves were smaller than the old one. It turns out that the coconut husk with sphagnum moss decomposed so much that the media holds too much water. The coconut was mushy and fell apart easily.
I had to repot the seedlings with the new mix and the seedlings are once again doing well.

Paphman910

It survived in its little intensive care container for a few months then croaked. Interestingly, I have a few other Winston Churchhill crosses that are having some issues as well with the roots going bad - yet not having the same problem with other paphs (just repotted a bunch). I'm wondering if Winston has some particular quirk that doesn't like my growing area.