Last July I rescued a beautiful striped phalaenopsis orchid from a Lowe’s. It was on clearance and leaves were completely floppy . I knew it was a long shot as it had 3 spikes of flowers and clearly all its energy was going into those. I got it home and cleaned up and there was literally NO root system just a big mound of mush. Once it was cleaned up and repotted even the two air roots quickly shriveled up to nothing. The plant (now bare root) sat in the window for months getting misted once a day. Unfortunately nothing I did seem to make a difference (plant lights, root soaks, fertilizer etc.) I just watched as one by one the leaves yellowed and dropped off. Still…no new roots. Finally the fourth of its five leaves dropped off one night leaving only a single, very floppy leave with old residual filament roots and nothing else. I had resigned myself to fact that this plant was just too far gone when I got it. The morning after leaf number four dropped I noticed the 5th leaf looked a little less shriveled. When I picked it up, the leaf supported itself instead of flopping around! No new roots but it was still fighting. This morning I went to give it its daily misting to discover it is pushing a new leaf! It appears to have the tiniest of root bud coming out the side of the leaf base. I’m just looking at this small plant fighting with everything it has to survive and grow and how amazing and resilient nature is.
