P.S.: I forgot to answer you question on whether to repot. Unless the plant
or plants are not healthy, you should wait until the orchid stopped blooming
and only then repot it. Also unless the moss or bark or whatever medium the
orchid came in is no longer fresh and is starting to decompose, as long as
the orchid is healthy, and as long as it's not outgrown the pot it is in (to
the point of tipping over from its weight for example), you may wish to wait
with repotting otherwise.

The two plants in one pot, if they are indeed two, will probably be better
off in separate pots, but if they are both healthy, wait until they stop
blooming. Get pots that are only just big enough to hold the root ball of
each plant -- do not repot the two orchids into two separate pots that are
the size of the original pot, since a pot that is too big for the orchid
makes it more likely that it will get root rot.

The best way to learn how to repot in my opinion is to watch someone else do
it, and ask them to explain the process. Do you know whether there is an
orchid society in your area, which you could contact? If you tell us, where
you live, someone could tell you which society to contact, and they could
show you how to repot. Otherwise, if you have a plant nursery near you, some
plant nurseries will provide repotting services for a fee, and if you watch
them do it, you can learn how to much better than from a tutorial. It really
helped me learn how to do it. A tutorial will give you the basics, but
unless you have observed and learned from someone else, it's really hard to
learn to differentiate healthy roots from ones that should be cut off.

Best,
Joanna

"J Fortuna" wrote in message
news:W7Vee.399$hb1.165@trnddc05...
Keefer,

First of all, welcome, both to rgo and to orchid growing.

As to your first question/plant:

1) Are you sure that the plant is healthy enough to encourage it to
rebloom?
How many leaves does it have? How many of them look healthy? Has it lost
any
old leaves while in your care? Has it grown any new leaves? If it has
plenty
of healthy leaves and has recently grown a new leaf and has not lost more
than one old leaf, then encouraging the orchid to rebloom may be a good
idea.
2) Does the Phal have a tag identifying its name as more than a
Phalaenopsis? If not, can you describe the flowers of this Phal? Are they
white, pink, or yellow? Waxy or silky in substance? The reason I ask is
that
for some Phals it is not a good idea to cut their spikes since they will
rebloom from the same spike. One rule of thumb that I have heard: never
cut
the spike of a yellow phal as long as the spike is green, since it may
just
go on blooming.
3) A lot of Phals (whether yellow or not) will continue blooming from the
same spike, just continuing to prolong their spike with additional
flowers,
so if the spike remains green, you could just opt to not cut it at all and
wait and see.
4) If you would like to try to cut it part-way (do this only if the plant
is
healthy enough, and only if the flower color is not yellow), the easiest
thing is to cut the spike right beneath where its lowest flower used to be
or right above the next node (that knuckle like division in the spike). If
the spike is very long and not aesthetically pleasing, you could cut lower
than that, leaving 3 or 4 nodes from the bottom up. The idea behind
cutting
a spike part-way is to try to fool the orchid into reacting like it would
if
it's spike was damaged before it had a chance to have a full blooming
season, and to grow a branch from one of the nodes.

As for your second orchid:

Phals are monopodial, this means that the leaves of one plant will grow
around one central crown, like this: one 1st leaf to one side, the 2nd
leaf
to the other side, the 4th leaf above leaf one, the 5th leaf above leaf 2,
and so on ... with all leaves of one plant stacked together around one
crown
in sets of two.
Given that, does your pot have only one Phal plant or more than one? Is
there more than one crown/center from which the leaves grow?

If there is only one set of leaves, then one possible explanation for a
different color or at least a different shade of color is that your Phal
could have a fading color that is less vibrant when the flowers have been
open for a long time. This is especially the case with yellow and orange
phals. Another explanation is that the blooms on the second spike may have
opened in very different light conditions from the blooms on the second
spike. Again the difference would mostly be a difference in shade of
color,
not actually different color.

Hope this helps.
Best,
Joanna

"Keefer Milton" wrote in message
...
Hello all,

I'm fairly new to orchids and have a few questions

I currently have two (maybe three, but i'll get into that in a moment)
phalaenopsis. The first I acquired has been in bloom for about 3-4
months
and is finally starting to drop it's blooms. I've read that I can
encourage
it to rebloom, if the plant is healthy enough, by trimming the main stem
below where the first bud developed. My question is how far down on the
spike to I cut and does anyone have a link to a good tutorial on
repotting
as i'm told the best time to repot is after the buds have dropped?

Additionally, I bought another orchid (these things are addictive) from
Sam's Club a few weeks ago. It seemed to be in very good condition with
medium green leaves, large sized blooms, and virtually no marks on it.
There
are what I thought to be two large spikes growing out of the moss with
the
second of the two spikes' buds not yet open. A few days ago the first of
those buds opened to reveal lips of a different color than on the other
spike in the same pot. My question here is: Have I gotten to phals in
one
pot? If so, should I risk repotting during a blooming stage or should I
leave them alone? If I should leave them alone, should I water or
fertilize
any differently?

Thanks so much in advance.

Keefer Milton