Phalaenopsis flower size?

[spicy0610]

Hi,

This may be a silly question... please pardon this newbie. I recently bought a yellow Phalaenopsis and it has quite a few buds and a few big yellow flowers. The place where I bought the flowers has a more humid and lower temperature environment. When I brought my plant home, two new buds blooms immediately (I guess my apartment has warmer temperature) but the flowers are not as big as the ones that already bloomed before I brought it back. My question is will the new flowers grow in size? If not, how to care for the buds so that it will bloom when it gets bigger? The plant still have quite a few of small buds and I don't want to see it bloom prematurely... Attached is the photo of my bigger and smaller flowers. Many thanks!

kit

[kmarch]

Hi and welcome to the forum!

First off, it's not uncommon for flowers towards the tip of the inflorescense to be a little smaller than the first ones to open. So a little variation in size is normal.

Secondly, Phal flowers often don't like a change in environment. Sometimes just the change in environment form nursery to home will cause buds to drop off. it's possible, as you suspected, the warmth caused buds to open early and therefore be smaller. the next time your Phal blooms it may not do this since all your flowers will be opening at home instead of half at the nursery and half at home.

If you don't have a good culture sheet for Phals, go to www.aos.org and get a Phalaenopsis culture sheet. With good culture your plant should bloom again for you. Typically Phals bloom once a year but the flowers last a long time.

Give the culture sheet a good read and if you have questions let us know.

Happy Growing!

[Atriel]

This may or may not have any effect on your blooms but I've noticed that the blooms that come from a secondary blooming, (after I've cut the initial flower spike) seem to be smaller than the first blooms.
I'm not sure if that has anything to do with it though.