Good job Judy :) That phal is losing it's lower leaves because it is sucking energy from it to keep itself alive. Regardless of whether that new leaf grows (it does look a bit bigger), if it doesn't grow new roots soon, it will be a gonor..:S I haven't found a great fail-proof way to rescue 100% rootless phals..I've tried sphag and bag with about a 70% success rate. The thing that confuses me is that some people say give the plant lots of light during recovery, and others say don't give it as much because it can't use the energy (seems a little flakey, if you ask me...maybe lower light stimulates more roots and less leaf growth...). I do think humidity is important - I see you have it in a tupperware type thing..that should be very good for it.

Not sure about the catt keiki...catts don't really make keikis, in my experience. Only new growths. What you chopped off may have been a new growth that started from an eye that was raised above the medium (thus leading you to believe it was a keiki)...but who knows? Now you have two plants!

It's not pretty but I'm glad you posted this. Guess I will have to admit to a couple orchids in not prime condition myself. Try soaking the phal in water for an hour and see if that helps to plump up the leaves. Good luck and keep us posted.

I, too, am glad to see posts on orchids that aren't doing well... it gives us novices a good view of what to watch for, and how to potentially save the plants. All cultural information is appreciated, good and bad!

I wish you luck!

Good luck Judy! I've been there too myself. I have a recovering, barely-there-roots, phal. I'm also nursing my masde to better health.

Sarah

I don't want to appear insensitive, but to me, when I hear of a sick plant and what is being done for it I want to find out more about how the plant was growing before it got ill. I agree with Calvin, it is confusing the advice that is given to people with their sick plants. IMO it is because most of us grow indoors, with or without supplemental lights while most of those giving the advice grow in greenhouses or conservatories. When an indoor grown plant is unwell the reason is because it was/is underlit. This is more than 90% always the case. Of course the actual agent of the demise is going to be a bacterial, fungal or other condition but the reason the bacteria or fungus or whatever was able to overwhelm the orchids immune system and bring it down can nearly always be traced back to a chronic lack of sufficient light. To put such a plant in 'recovery' in even less light is precisely the way to kill it for sure and I wonder how many that follow such advice actually successfully re-root rootless orchids. No question, orchids are not easy. There are no formulas and absolutes that will work as well in Hillsboro as well as they might in Tel Aviv so each grower has to discover for his/herself what "enough", "not enough" or "adequate" mean in their own local context. One clue though. Sick plants usually (almost always) mean "not enough" and what the "not enough" of is very nearly always, light.

H

Sorry it took me so long to acknowledge your contributions to this post - the last few days have been pretty hectic.
Calvin, thank you for your words of encouragement. It's been three weeks since I first started to apply the rooting hormone. The second leaf is now beginning to fade. If the last leaf can hang on there for another three weeks, the plant may just make it. And if not, it will be part of the total learning experience.
Howard, I read your comments very carefully. I am quite mystified as to why there was such a total disintegration of the root system on this phal., which produced such an abundance of flowers over so long a period. Or perhaps that was part of the reason. I suspect it was rootless for quite a while before I noticed. It couldn't possibly have been due to lack of light - it was given four hours of dappled morning sunlight EVERY day from mid-May until September. This summer was particularly hot - inside temperatures were a steady 30 C day and night for most of August and there was no breeze coming from the east (and, unusually, very little even from the west). I provided all the orchids with rudimentary humidity trays. Perhaps the bottom of the pots stayed damp for too long ??
Anyhow, based on my experience with the one phal that has already survived two summers, all the phals have now been removed from the humidity tray, and the root systems are being monitored carefully. All leaves are a healthy mid-green.
As far as the Catt. alliances are concerned, they definitely need more light. I should have realised this from observation of the growth habit of the Epicatt after I moved it to the east window. Before that it produced its first rebloom. After the move, it produced progressively three new leads, but instead of developing into one leaf and a sheath, as before, each lead grew two new leaves.. I thought that this was perhaps its normal growth habit, and that it would produce blooms from a new growth in early spring, but it seems that I was mistaken.
So,Phalpal, Jodi and Sarah I hope you've learnt something from my mistakes. I certainly have!!
Judy