"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.

The leaves, although smaller in comparison to my newest addition seem to be
very healthy. They are five in number, feel very firm, are a medium green,
and two of them have nearly doubled their length since being in my care.


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.

It looks very much like this:
http://orchids.com/shop/shopCatPop.a...s&itemNo=MC729
And the petals are silky as opposed to waxy


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.


I wonder of something else. Should the spike be able to support it's own
weight? I ask this because both my Phals were bought with a bamboo stake.


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?

I believe that there are two crowns here. The plant came potted in moss and
I believe that some small roots have twisted around the moss which makes me
hesitant to dig down deep enough to tell for sure. What I can say is that
there are definately two spikes. There are seven leaves total. One of it's
previous leaves was slightly yellowish when it was purchased and has since
turned more yellow and detached from the crown. Is this the normal mannor in
which phals lose their leaves?


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.

There is no pink evident on the lips of the flowers of one spike while there
is prominent pink shown on the lips of the flowers on the other spike.
Assuming these are two different plants and that their root structures are
entangled, would it be best to not seperate them at all?


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