I had a lucky (or unlucky depending on how you might view...
I had a lucky (or unlucky depending on how you might view it) find today! I was initially drawn to this mini phal’s peloria (a genetic mutation whereby the petals often take the shape of the bloom’s lip) and noticed she had an apical (sometimes called a terminal) spike. This means that the spike has grown from the crown and the plant won’t be able to grow any more leaves so essentially, it will die in the next few years. BUT plants with apical spikes often produce keikis (a genetic clone of the mother plant) as a way of surviving and it is this that made me decide to take a chance on her, even though I’m not the biggest fan of white blooms! I’ve wanted a keiki for so long! The care is the same, so I just have to keep everything crossed that she decides to make a keiki! At the very least, I hope it will be a learning experience for me. @MusicalRedmint have you had experience with apical spikes? #PhalaenopsisOrchid #OrchidLovers #PlantsMakePeopleHappy
2ft to light, direct
3” pot with drainage
Last watered 5 months ago
11
Yep. At least half of an experience: I did the very same thing as you a while back. White(green) Miniphal with terminal spike I decided to take a chance on. She was really strong and her initial bloom lasted forever, so no keikis there. And then she contracted the killer fungus and succumbed to it, so I'll never know 🤷♀️. As vigorous as she was (7 extremely healthy leaves) I'm pretty certain, without the fungus she would have grown a keiki, since she would have had plenty of time. But who knows.
I wish you a lot of luck with yours, keep me updated, if you don't mind.
Seeing the slight yellow on the lower petals it might even be the same hybrid as mine. It initially was almost pure white and the secondary bloom came out delightfully yellow/ lime green with freckles. And it had some deformed half peloric petals on the secondary bloom as well. I think they are prone to terminal spikes though, so maybe each keiki will present the same problem? That was my worry at least, but I had to take the chance all the same, as did you apparently 😅 🤞
I wish you a lot of luck with yours, keep me updated, if you don't mind.
Seeing the slight yellow on the lower petals it might even be the same hybrid as mine. It initially was almost pure white and the secondary bloom came out delightfully yellow/ lime green with freckles. And it had some deformed half peloric petals on the secondary bloom as well. I think they are prone to terminal spikes though, so maybe each keiki will present the same problem? That was my worry at least, but I had to take the chance all the same, as did you apparently 😅 🤞
@MusicalRedmint I’m really sorry to hear that you lost years 😢 and it does sound like with her strength and your care, she would have produced a keiki. Hopefully another little experiment will come your way in the not too distant future. Mine has seven leaves also, but the top two leaves are a bit on the small side, which, because she looks healthy overall, I think is most likely because she was pushing her energy into blooming. She has five flower spikes, so hopefully plenty of chances for a flower spike keiki. And 5-7 healthy leaves that’ll hopefully keep her going for a while, especially if she’s near the humidifier in the summer (mine have shed far fewer leaves this year and the only thing I’ve done differently is upped the humidity so I’m sure it’s that). I have however come across some advice that says it’s best to remove the spikes and let the plant concentrate on producing a basal keiki. My gut instinct says that it’s surely better to give her as many chances of producing a keiki as possible so leave the stem? I’ve also seen some people suggest removing the blooms where they start and leaving the nodes because that’s where a spike keiki will form. What did you do with yours? I’m not going to mess around with hormones or additional fertilisers, just my normal fertiliser, and I’m just going to let her do her natural thing. That’s the plan anyway! I’m happy to keep you updated 😊. I read that white peloric and some white phals are more genetically predisposed to apical spikes than other hybrids. I’m also wondering if the yellow and speckles on mine are part of the peloria as that’s the same pattern on the lip. How are you and your plants doing? I had the worst case of orchid hypochondria after I lost my little one to stem rot. I was convinced I was going to lose another when it started to shed a leaf and the stem went a little discoloured but then it started throwing out loads of roots where the discolouration was so I think it was just the roots growing and there’s been no progression or any other symptoms so I was just being paranoid! I’m hoping to start seeing flower spikes on my phals emerging in the next month. October is usually when I start to get the overnight temperature drops. A mini phal I purchased last winter is already making a spike - she must barely need a temperature drop at all (there’s only about a 4-5C drop in my home at the moment)! Miss Finicky has finally settled down! The leaves and blooms have perked back up and the roots look less stressed too, I’ve also noticed some of the roots inside the pot growing. My mystery one is still growing the spike and it’s coming along nicely. I’m really not sure it is going to be a red/dark coloured bloom as I would have expected to see more anthocyanin by now but there’s still some way to go before the spike is ready for buds so we’ll just have to see! I repotted my Sweet Memory Liodoro along with her basal keiki (I’m keeping them attached) - they were in their original coco coir as I couldn’t find a good time to repot and then I was ill but they were finally spending time in vegetative growth and I repotted them in bark with some perlite mixed into the lower portion and they are loving it! They barely stressed at all. I always struggled to keep them properly hydrated in the coir, but I’ve noticed that their leaves have become much springier and more plump and the rate of root growth has improved too. And my oncidium twinkle is producing six flower spikes and I’m so excited! I adore that plant and her tiny star shaped blooms (they smell like vanilla too)!!
All of that sounds so great (apart from the hypochondria, I guess 😉). I was thinking about cutting my spikes down to the last intact nodes since that is the general advice growers around here give to help induce secondary blooms, and it should help with keikis as well. Some growers also just say cutting down to the second or third node from the bottom is what's needed. If you don't want hormones, I guess keiki paste is not for you, though it might enhance your experiment? I myself never got around to buying any, though I am quite curious as to its efficacy. In general, your experiment seems way more structured than mine. (Mine was more of a "I want that plant - dang it, it has a terminal spike - ooh, that might be interesting - let's leave it to its own devices and see how it goes" kind of experiment). But I would also just leave some part of the spike, the basal keiki idea seems counterintuitive to me, unless it's a hybrid known to spread out that way. My mother has a summer blooming hybrid, that does that: 3 basal keikis plus the mother in one pot without her ever doing anything. And never a spike keiki in sight.
As for the others:
My plants are doing great right now (knock on wood) I do not mother them daily anymore like I did after all those big and small catastrophes of the last months. Only the mounted ones get almost daily care. And everything is thriving. Root growth on the orchids is crazy and if I'm not careful I will disappear in my newly created hoya jungle. just today I've prepared a small humidity and light chamber for them for the winter time. Just in case.
After I had all those orchids with the roots just withering away without any visible cause, it's crazy to me that I will have to repot several cattleyas again soon and phals as well, when the season ends. I've missed all the root stalking and now there are fresh green roots left and right. And since my apartment got pretty warm during this summer, the temperature drop was already enough to start off the phal season. Among others my mini mark is quite far along and a delightful yellow one is working on two. My schilleriana no 2 is maybe even a week +/- x away from blooming - though I am a bit apprehensive about that: that timing would be disappointing. I will undergo surgery including at least one week of hospitalization afterwards, exactly when I think it might bloom for the first time. I can get pictures of the flowers, sure, but I really do not want to miss out on the fragrance. Also, my mother who will house and dogsit in the meantime tends to be a bit chaotic (it runs in the family 😉), so I'm just a little bit afraid about the general care all the plants will receive in the meantime.
As for the rest: my Tsiku Marguerite oncidium should be blooming soon as well.. that one originally had 5 spikes, but alas, my dog reaaaaally likes the window I've placed it in, so now it only has 3 and 2/2. 🤷♀️ and I'm quite jealous of your twinkle. My beautiful fiery pink one is still struggling and I think it will be a while until it has recovered enough to bloom.
Your jungle sounds gorgeous and well cared for. Try to leave the worries behind. Stupid stem rot. Grmpf. It's great to hear that Miss Finicky might not be all that finicky after all. I'm rooting for you solving your mystery orchids color soon. My mystery one will be a while. unless she is a very prolific bloomer, I don't expect blooms from her this year, so it will be at least one year wait until I know, I guess.
It's crazy how much difference the right medium can have for growth, so good for your liodoro. My cattleyas also love a bit of perlite mixed in, at least I've not have any complaints. Was it really in "coir" coir? Someone asked about it as a medium on Greg a while back and I was confused then as well. I mean... if you use that as a medium, why not mount it in the first place. That does not seem water retentive in the least. I've had good results with coco husk and with hoyas who have similar needs to orchid roots, with coco soil, but the use of coir confuses me.
Happy blooms. 🌸🌿🌸, I hope your orchids grow steadily and happily, so you can leave that pesky feeling of stem-rot-dread behind. And good luck with your experiment.
As for the others:
My plants are doing great right now (knock on wood) I do not mother them daily anymore like I did after all those big and small catastrophes of the last months. Only the mounted ones get almost daily care. And everything is thriving. Root growth on the orchids is crazy and if I'm not careful I will disappear in my newly created hoya jungle. just today I've prepared a small humidity and light chamber for them for the winter time. Just in case.
After I had all those orchids with the roots just withering away without any visible cause, it's crazy to me that I will have to repot several cattleyas again soon and phals as well, when the season ends. I've missed all the root stalking and now there are fresh green roots left and right. And since my apartment got pretty warm during this summer, the temperature drop was already enough to start off the phal season. Among others my mini mark is quite far along and a delightful yellow one is working on two. My schilleriana no 2 is maybe even a week +/- x away from blooming - though I am a bit apprehensive about that: that timing would be disappointing. I will undergo surgery including at least one week of hospitalization afterwards, exactly when I think it might bloom for the first time. I can get pictures of the flowers, sure, but I really do not want to miss out on the fragrance. Also, my mother who will house and dogsit in the meantime tends to be a bit chaotic (it runs in the family 😉), so I'm just a little bit afraid about the general care all the plants will receive in the meantime.
As for the rest: my Tsiku Marguerite oncidium should be blooming soon as well.. that one originally had 5 spikes, but alas, my dog reaaaaally likes the window I've placed it in, so now it only has 3 and 2/2. 🤷♀️ and I'm quite jealous of your twinkle. My beautiful fiery pink one is still struggling and I think it will be a while until it has recovered enough to bloom.
Your jungle sounds gorgeous and well cared for. Try to leave the worries behind. Stupid stem rot. Grmpf. It's great to hear that Miss Finicky might not be all that finicky after all. I'm rooting for you solving your mystery orchids color soon. My mystery one will be a while. unless she is a very prolific bloomer, I don't expect blooms from her this year, so it will be at least one year wait until I know, I guess.
It's crazy how much difference the right medium can have for growth, so good for your liodoro. My cattleyas also love a bit of perlite mixed in, at least I've not have any complaints. Was it really in "coir" coir? Someone asked about it as a medium on Greg a while back and I was confused then as well. I mean... if you use that as a medium, why not mount it in the first place. That does not seem water retentive in the least. I've had good results with coco husk and with hoyas who have similar needs to orchid roots, with coco soil, but the use of coir confuses me.
Happy blooms. 🌸🌿🌸, I hope your orchids grow steadily and happily, so you can leave that pesky feeling of stem-rot-dread behind. And good luck with your experiment.
@MotherOfOrchids I love it! Those colored freckles and pale pastel on the lower petals ...😍
I have never had one of my orchids grow more than one flower spike, and I have also never had a Keiki. I am really hoping yours gets multiples since you have multiple spikes! That would be awesome!
I envy you guys and your collections. I really would like to branch out into more types, but have too many other plants right now. Not a great excuse, but it's what I'm sticking with for now. 😂
I have never had one of my orchids grow more than one flower spike, and I have also never had a Keiki. I am really hoping yours gets multiples since you have multiple spikes! That would be awesome!
I envy you guys and your collections. I really would like to branch out into more types, but have too many other plants right now. Not a great excuse, but it's what I'm sticking with for now. 😂
@UltraKoreanfir I envy those that branch out more 😀 I am not really able to have a wide variety of plants or other things. Or more rational selfcontroll. Just look at that hoya debacle: once I realized, that there are so many of them and somehow they are all different and still the same type, there was no stopping me 😅. Same goes for orchids. Did I really need another yellow one with a pink center? No? But this one is a bit more pink than the other. It's a problem as well, believe me. 😅 I'm at the point, where lighting will become really costly, because sometimes when I'm in the zone I can not hear all those valid and great reasons.
@MusicalRedmint you don't know how many times I've thought about trying to focus on one type; all Sansevieria, all Euphorbia, all 🌵, all ??? But I get distracted too easily. I'm a focus, focus, focus, "OOOH! SQUIRREL!" kind of person. 😂🤣😂🐿️
@UltraKoreanfir sounds familiar.🤣 But not in this case 😅 I've been recently diagnosed ADHD (so yes, I'm definitely also a "squirrel" person), which already makes a *lot* of sense of my whole life. But I'm quite certain at this point that I have a dash of something else as well that tends to go along with it. For that matter... I'm off now to follow my morning routine and water my orchids in a very specific order, because what better start into the day is there? 😅
@MusicalRedmint Right....and do you find yourself counting a lot? Or doing other strange things? I do things sometimes that seem weird, but I don't know if they're really weird...like maybe tons of people do the same. Who knows? Nothing gets in the way of me being able to work or get my business done, so it's nothing that I feel needs diagnosed or medicating.
It could be a tad bit of ADHD along with a tad bit of OCD.
It could be a tad bit of ADHD along with a tad bit of OCD.
@UltraKoreanfir I've been diagnosed with quite a lot of things in my time that never quite fit and I never cared as long as I get some support and all measures seemed to work a bit and I was getting by somehow.
Well, getting by hadn't been an option for some time, and I've always felt that I've stumped therapists and doctors throughout the years and they got frustrated with my non-existent progress and some things I tried to explain. As did I. And then I stumbled over people who, for the first time, could express *exactly* 1-to-1 what I felt and always tried to express when I struggled with simply getting stuff done in my life. (Spoiler, at first, it wasn't ADHD people, but close). Since then I've researched like crazy, heard diagnosed people talk about their life, read books, the DSM-5, used all available legit self-diagnostic tools, always thinking, "nah, one person in my 10 year "specialist" ' journey or someone in the 20 years before would have noticed something, if it really is that obvious". Nope. Last year, I went to get an official diagnosis, and I checked all the boxes to the max for ADHD. After the first 10 minutes, the doctor joked that we could almost skip the tests, from what I told her and how I presented. Some of the problems that are evaluated during the diagnostic processes are exactly what I've told several "professionals" for years, verbatim. Isn't it fun being a woman?
As for the meds: I've also never ever really taken medicine against anything before, and for years, I thought, why would I. I function somehow, and I just need to work a bit harder at myself. It's a problem of working harder, and I do not like messing with my brain😅
Ehm, with even only a dash of the right medication, I've immediately realized how easy most people have it, doing all that simple stuff in life. (Well, the stuff everybody else told me is simple) It's ridiculous how much more energy I had, simply, because simply "functioning" in day to day doesn't require 80% of my energy. Apparently, it's easy, not being a squirrel, starting tasks, and making phone calls. (Things I did, but have me)
As for the counting and doing "weird" things part: yes, in some ways, I need way more structure than one would think with "only " ADHD. Which is why I was not functioning at all anymore because the ADHD made any kind of structure impossible the older I got. I stim (luckily in ways most people do not notice, as do most late diagnosed people). In. My case liking to count things in my head, repeating words, tapping my fingers constantly and other things, are definitely stims, but not from OCD in my case.
I've always been (charmingly 😉 ) weird and different (not in a pick me kind of way, I promise😅). Changes in plans and not knowing what a plan is stress me out like little else. Throughout my life all the times when I am more social or in situations with a lot of stimuli (e.g. places with a constant din of noise, going shopping), I've always needed a ridiculous amount of rest afterwards.
Rest of the diagnosis is pending, is what I'm saying😅
I hope this helps. I tend to get verbal diarrhea when asked about this topic for a while now - I'm sorry if this is TMI.
Also on the off-chance, you wanted to take a closer look, I just wanted to share. Because I know the feeling of "feeling being weird, but not really - or am I? Or the others?" And "getting business done, so it can't be that bad". For me, even if there is no miracle fix, it's great to know other people who feel and do 99% the same as I, and knowing that what the v underlying cause of so many things was. 😀
Well, getting by hadn't been an option for some time, and I've always felt that I've stumped therapists and doctors throughout the years and they got frustrated with my non-existent progress and some things I tried to explain. As did I. And then I stumbled over people who, for the first time, could express *exactly* 1-to-1 what I felt and always tried to express when I struggled with simply getting stuff done in my life. (Spoiler, at first, it wasn't ADHD people, but close). Since then I've researched like crazy, heard diagnosed people talk about their life, read books, the DSM-5, used all available legit self-diagnostic tools, always thinking, "nah, one person in my 10 year "specialist" ' journey or someone in the 20 years before would have noticed something, if it really is that obvious". Nope. Last year, I went to get an official diagnosis, and I checked all the boxes to the max for ADHD. After the first 10 minutes, the doctor joked that we could almost skip the tests, from what I told her and how I presented. Some of the problems that are evaluated during the diagnostic processes are exactly what I've told several "professionals" for years, verbatim. Isn't it fun being a woman?
As for the meds: I've also never ever really taken medicine against anything before, and for years, I thought, why would I. I function somehow, and I just need to work a bit harder at myself. It's a problem of working harder, and I do not like messing with my brain😅
Ehm, with even only a dash of the right medication, I've immediately realized how easy most people have it, doing all that simple stuff in life. (Well, the stuff everybody else told me is simple) It's ridiculous how much more energy I had, simply, because simply "functioning" in day to day doesn't require 80% of my energy. Apparently, it's easy, not being a squirrel, starting tasks, and making phone calls. (Things I did, but have me)
As for the counting and doing "weird" things part: yes, in some ways, I need way more structure than one would think with "only " ADHD. Which is why I was not functioning at all anymore because the ADHD made any kind of structure impossible the older I got. I stim (luckily in ways most people do not notice, as do most late diagnosed people). In. My case liking to count things in my head, repeating words, tapping my fingers constantly and other things, are definitely stims, but not from OCD in my case.
I've always been (charmingly 😉 ) weird and different (not in a pick me kind of way, I promise😅). Changes in plans and not knowing what a plan is stress me out like little else. Throughout my life all the times when I am more social or in situations with a lot of stimuli (e.g. places with a constant din of noise, going shopping), I've always needed a ridiculous amount of rest afterwards.
Rest of the diagnosis is pending, is what I'm saying😅
I hope this helps. I tend to get verbal diarrhea when asked about this topic for a while now - I'm sorry if this is TMI.
Also on the off-chance, you wanted to take a closer look, I just wanted to share. Because I know the feeling of "feeling being weird, but not really - or am I? Or the others?" And "getting business done, so it can't be that bad". For me, even if there is no miracle fix, it's great to know other people who feel and do 99% the same as I, and knowing that what the v underlying cause of so many things was. 😀
Hey Debbie your mini phal is gorgeous 🤩
Is this a plant with an apical spike? It has a keiki, that's been growing very slowly for months. Should I do anything or just leave it alone until it has more roots?
Is this a plant with an apical spike? It has a keiki, that's been growing very slowly for months. Should I do anything or just leave it alone until it has more roots?
