I would take it out of that cache pot. Does not look like water can drain out, if it does not there is a reservoir of still water and the pot itself restricts airflow. Put together you get mold. Also, there is a possibility those roots are sitting in that water and can lead to rot. Lovely orchid though :)

http://www.myhouseplants.com/insects.html http://www.meadowbrook-farm.com/Newsletter/DecJan03/page8.html http://www.littleshopofhorrors.co.uk/customer/pages.php?pageid=12&js=n http://www.ext.vt.edu/departments/entomology/ornamentals/mbugswp.html http://experts.about.com/q/721/3421412.htm?zIr=5 http://www.maximumyield.com/viewart.php?article=181 Consider wettable orthene for what ever you have?

Rooting roses teach me what cause black canker on canes: 1) Acidic & too wet soil 2) Pockets of wetness, either a clump of wet clay, or wet sand Perlite helps to create "air pockets" and fast drainage of water so canes don't rot in rooting roses. In OUTSIDE garden, can't use perlite (it decompose & flatten out), but pine-bark-mulch in planting hole is FANTASTIC for fast-drainage, and help tremendously with winter-survival: prevents feeder-roots from being frozen & destroyed. Digging roses up from Dec. 26 to Jan 1, at 40 to 37 F, here's what I notice: Dee-lish bought end of June is green to the tip, with green leaves, the soil below is made fluffy with pine-bark mulch, drains very fast, upper soil is alkaline clay to retain moisture. Same with W.S. 2000 with green & healthy leaves this Jan: excellent drainage dug down to 3 feet. While digging up Comte (grafted-on-multiflora), I notice where I mixed sand with clay: it's frozen into solid-ice. But where I have gypsum and pine-bark mixed it .. that PREVENTED SOIL FROM BEING FROZEN. I once spent 1 hour researching on whether potassium fertilizer helps with winter-survival: some site said it helps, other studies showed it did not. With my own eyes, my verdict is "No". Where I put high-potassium cocoa mulch: it's frozen solid at 40 F, same with soil below high-potassium red-lava-rock. But high calcium, esp. gypsum helps to keep soil fluffy, thus prevent roots from being frozen solid. I used gritty lime to de-ice my front-walkway, and it worked great in the winter. There are studies that backed this. CONCLUSION: Digging deep for drainage, plus make soil fluffy with gypsum & pine-bark-mulch helps with winter survival: leaves are still green & lush as OWN-ROOTS despite previous weeks of -10 to -13 below zero. Below are green & lush leaves of Dee-lish rose, picked on December 26, in my zone 5a:

Hi Bart! Agreed, but also whether the stock is more suited to the conditions than the original variety. For years, there was a large bed of Iceberg at The Huntington Library. All but one plant were budded to Dr. Huey. One died, and it was replaced by an own root plant rooted by the volunteers. That was the most vigorous of the bunch. Now, it COULD be that a more climbing type was selected for the cuttings, resulting in a more vigorous replacement plant; or it COULD be that Iceberg own root was more suited to the combination of conditions there than Dr. Huey, or both. We'll never know for sure, but you see the potential questions. If the plant is weak, budding it to anything more vigorous and/or better suited to the conditions can greatly change the habit. Something extremely vigorous could actually be inhibited by budding (like a dwarfing fruit tree root stock) if there is incompatibility between the scion and stock. There are MANY potential issues to consider in answering the question, but in general, more than likely.