Is it too soon to repot my Phal?

[Lulu]

I purchased a phal fback in May. Within a week of getting it home, the flowers begin to fall off but I didn't give up on it. I finally found a great spot for it in an east facing window where it gets lots of good morning light. For a little while it looked like the spikes were going to bud out again but eventually they started turning brown so I cut them off like I had read about doing on the internet. I also lost one of my bottom leaves around this time but I didn't panic because everything I read said this was a normal thing. I have been very cautious of over-watering and only water it once a week after my skewer seems dried out.

In August the leaves started getting wrinkled and had a leather appearance and everything I read said to repot it and remove any dead roots. So, after gathering up the courage, I took it out of its plastic pot and quickly saw that all but one of my roots were dead. At this point, I sort of expected this thing to just die on me but I wanted to keep trying so I repotted it in much better mix (and had to stake it with some plant string because it couldn't support itself).

None of the wrinkled leaves turned yellow...they stayed put and one morning I noticed that I had a new root and new leaf growing! I was so excited!! Fast forward to last weekend...I got home from vacation and my two bottom leaves had turned yellow and dried up (no biggie), another leaf has started growing, and four new roots have appeared!!

Now here is my problem, I have the original root and the root from the first new leaf growing in the mix but the other four roots are above the mix (one grew through one of my green leaves). Should I repot it again now or wait until they get a little longer and repot it in the Spring? I have it sitting on a humidity tray and feed it weekly with a weak fertilizer.

I'm not expecting any spikes because it was in pretty bad shape and I expect the other wrinkled leaves to eventually fall off (some don't even stand up anymore). I've grown rather attached to the little guy and would hate to see him die now so any suggestions would be wonderful!

[tucker85]

There's no reason to repot it again if you potted it in August. The roots that are growing above the mix are aerial roots. Some phals prefer to have some of their roots out in the air. In nature all of the roots would be growing out into the air. When you water the plant make sure you wet the aerial roots well. In fact, if you like misting, you can take a little plastic spray bottle and mist the aerial roots regularly. That way you can give the plant moisture without risking root rot. So just leave the plant alone and let it grow the way it wants to. Good luck.

[Lulu]

Thanks Jeff! I water from the top so the aerial roots get a good quenching. If I decided to mist, how often would I need to do that? I don't want to get carried away and have them go bad on me. When I do repot it (much later)...do I leave these aerial roots out or would I try to get them to go into the pot? If it is better to leave the roots out as aerial, I want to make sure I do that because it obviously knows what it wants.