Orchid show purchase

[DEC]

I recently attended my first show and bought a number of plants. I was suprised when the flowers on two phals dropped within a few days. One plant had 4 blooms and the other had about seven.I assumed that it was just the end of the cycle but I removed the plants from their pots to examine the roots. One plant had many green roots but the medium was packed very tight(moss), was extremely wet, and the moss was moldy looking. The second plant had severe root rot and most of the roots were gone. I elected to re pot both and my questiion is -Is this conmmon for show plants? Both of the plants were from the same vendor.

[Kmac]

I would take pix (esp of the one with severe root rot) and send to the vendor...he should refund or replace.

I've only been to one orchid show, but I bought numerous plants there, from several vendors. I have repotted many, as they were overgrowing their pots. All but two of the 20 or so I bought from vendors had great roots. Of the other 2, one really should have been repotted way sooner, and some roots had rotted...but it had enough left to do fine, so that was OK. The last one was a mess, and when the vendor saw the awful state of the roots (or lack thereof), he apologized and refunded my money immediately. It seems to me your vendo, if reputable, should do the same.

[Brutal_Dreamer]

Sound advice from Kathi.

Cheers,
BD