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#1
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New to orchids...
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 |
#2
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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 |
#3
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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 |
#4
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"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 |
#5
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"Keefer Milton" wrote in message . .. 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. Sounds healthy indeed. The size of the leaves may just be due to this Phal being a hybrid of smaller-leaved Phals. The fact that two of the leaves have doubled in size is good. Growing its leaves is indeed a sign of health. It looks very much like this: http://orchids.com/shop/shopCatPop.a...s&itemNo=MC729 And the petals are silky as opposed to waxy Hmm, the photo in the linked page is a branching multi-floral. Those tend to create new branches with no need to cut off the spike part-way to induce them to do so. So if yours is really like this, I would just leave the spike as is without cutting, and it may continue to grow a branch and reflower from that or it may not. But I don't think that with a multi-floral the cutting of the spike partway will help. My understanding (from what I have read about this) is that in the Phals where one cuts the spike partway, the reason why this works is since the final bud of the spike produces some sort of hormone that prevents the dormant growths from forming into branches, while the tip of the spike is still in tact. However, with a multifloral Phal, it already has the tendency to develop lot of branches, and thus I don't think this applies. 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. Very few Phals can support the spikes weight and hold the flower spikes upright without a stake of some sort. Some of them can, but most need to be staked both to make the arangement more aesthetically pleasing to us humans, and to reduce the chances of the spike accidentally breaking while you move the plant, etc. A piece of Phal trivia: in nature Phals grow on trees, the leaves and the spikes hang downward. So the way we grow them as houseplants is really upside down from their natural way of growing. And thus Phals are not really naturally inclined to hold their spikes weight. 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. The two crowns, if there indeed are two, should be visible above the moss: do all leaves meet in one central point or not. If you think you would need to dig underneath the moss to find out whether there are two plants here, that does not sound like there are likely two plants of flowering size. Hmm. Curious that. Could you take some pictures of the plant and either post a link to this group (no picture posting here) or post a picture to alt.binaries.pictures.orchids? 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? Was this one of the bottom leaves? If so, then yes, that is exactly how an old leave falls off naturally. If it was an upper leaf, that may be a sign of stress of not so good health. Phals grow new leaves from the top and loose them from the bottom, and exceptions to that are usually a sign that something may be wrong. I tend to watch my Phals after I observe an old leaf falling off. If the same Phal looses another leaf or two without growing a new leaf on the top, I tend to cut off any spikes it may have all the way down, no matter whether they are in flower or not. I will then put the flower spike in a vase of water, just in case it decides to continue as a cut flower. Flowering takes energy from the plant, and thus if the plant needs to concentrate energy on new leaf-growth, then it's better to cut off the spike. Unless of course one cares more about its current flowering season than about the plant's longevity. 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? While I have never seen a Phal with two spikes that produced flowers as different as that, I am not sure whether it is impossible. As for whether to keep the plants together, as long as both remain healthy, there is no rush to separate them. The next time you repot, if indeed there are two plants, see whether or not you can separate them with minimal damage to the roots. But as long as all remain healthy, there is no rush. Best, Joanna |
#6
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Hi, Keefer,
To add to Joanna's information, it is entirely possible for a Phal to develop multiple crowns. Given the fact that the flowers on the two spikes are different, I tend to doubt that's the case here, however. Once the blooming has finished, it will be time to repot anyway, so if there are two plants in there you can separate them at that time. It should be pretty clear whether it's one plant or two, even if the roots are somewhat entangled. Phal roots are the easiest to unravel, in my opinion, so you shouldn't have a problem. As far as branching spikes are concerned, I treat them the same as those that do not branch. It's easy to see if a spike is throwing off branches; you'll notice small growths at the nodes. The main thing to remember, I think, is to let the spike go on its own, as many will put out new buds at the tip after the first flowers have fallen off or are in the process of doing so. Don't be too quick to cut back a Phal spike. Let it tell you what it wants to do. As far as flower color is concerned, I have not heard anything about yellow Phals as opposed to other colors, but none of us knows everything, after all. One thing I do know about the yellows is that they seem to be a bit more prone to attracting insects. Please don't ask me why! I imagine that they are a bit more genetically fragile than some others, but that's a guess. Having said all that, I urge new growers to be cautious about encouraging that second bloom on Phals. Your aim is a healthy plant that will bloom for years to come, and the energy needed for an extra few flowers, which will probably not be as spectacular as the first batch, will detract from the plant's ability to produce new leaves and healthy roots. My advice: go get another orchid! If you pick up just one blooming orchid each month (taking care to add plants that like your environment), you are pretty much guaranteed to have something in bloom all the time. That is also a wonderful way to feed the beast! Diana |
#7
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Depends on the plant. I do know of plants (eg Dtps. I-Hsin Chocolate =
P. Ever-Spring King x Dtps. Leopard Prince), from which will emerge multiple spikes, each with completely different flowers. The separate flowers on each spike resemble each other, however. It's really quite fascinating and interesting to see. Trace the flower spikes on your plant until they meet up with the leaves, ands see if they emerge from the same stem. Check out Dtps. I-Hsin Chocolate http://bigleaforchids.com/newsletter/may2005.htm Cheers, Xi |
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