Question
I have a purple Phalaenopsis that is pretty small, bloom spike about 10" from the top of the pot, leaves have a 6" diameter and the root ball is about the size of a baseball.  It is in bloom and potted in a tiny clear plastic pot inside a tiny clay pot (both have a drainage hole).  The root ball fills the little pots. The potting medium is sphagnum moss. When I got the orchid from a local garden center it looked great, but it has slowly developed wrinkled, limp leaves and when I removed the root ball from the pots I found a couple of grey slimy rotten roots at the bottom.  The roots are tight around the outside of the moss. The woman at the garden center said that it needed more water after looking at the leaves, but I am scared to kill it with water since there is already some root rot. What can I do to save it, it was a Mother's day gift.  since Mother's day I have watered it twice getting it pretty wet both times.

Answer
Hello Krista,

I hate to contradict the lady at the garden center, who probably doesn't know much about orchids, but you did the right thing by not doing as she suggested!  

What is probably causing the wrinkly leaves is the sphagnum moss because it holds water for quite some time, even though the exposed top part may look dry, within the pot it probably is still pretty wet.  Personally, I hate the stuff because of this.  Some growers like moss because of this, because they don't have to water as often.  As you have seen, kept wet for too long will cause root rot.  

When I buy an orchid potted in moss, I try to repot it as soon as I can into a more open mix containing orchid bark and perlite with maybe a little horticultural charcoal.  

By the way, wrinkly leaves on a phal. can be caused by being too dry and too wet, but in my experience most new phal. growers tend to water too often rather than not enough.  This is why I advise most persons to wait until the potting media (what ever it might be) is almost dry before watering again.  Depending upon where a person lives and how they are growing it, this can be from several days to several weeks or even longer.  

Unfortunately, once a phal. leaf becomes wrinkly, it will not plump back up.  Leave it alone and allow it to turn yellow and fall off on its own as it can still help keep the healthy parts alive.  

Hope this helped.

Jim Kawasaki
San Jose, Ca.