After the blooms are gone!

[saucyredlvr]

I have this wonderful orchard and it has finished blooming. I am not sure the name or species, but it has a long stock coming out of the base of the plant. I have had several non orchard people tell me to just cut it off. Should this be done? If so how do I know where to cut? I am not very good with plants in general and would be heart broken if I killed this plant. It was a gift from a dear friend and it was given to me to help cheer me up. I have received this plant over a year ago and it stopped flowering eleven months ago I am unsure what type of orchard it is. I have purchased several books, but none are really helpful because I get lost in all of the background of each plant and I cannot figure out which plant I have. Please help. Thank you for having a forum for people like me to get help.

[janet_a]

take a look at the culture sheets here:

http://aos.org/aos/orchids/page01.aspx

under "beginner level" and see if you can figure out what general type it is.

as for cutting, personally i don't cut anything until it turns yellow and dies.

you can cut the spikes on phalaenopsis

http://aos.org/aos/uploadedfiles/docs/culturephals.pdf


pretty high up and sometimes the spike will send off a new flower shoot.

can you post a picture of the plant?

[jerrymeola]

You can never hurt a plant by cutting the flower spike. While you can get some new flowers occasionally on phaladenopsis (which is probably your plant from the discription) it is not necessary and commercial growers ofter cut the stem even with flowers on it to strengthen a plant.

Look at the culture sheet on the link from Janet. Phals are identified by the thick wide leaves. It should be easy to see from the line drawings. If it is a phal you need to put it in a cool place this fall where temperature drops about 20 degrees at night down to about 50 degrees. Without this cooling they probably will not set flowers. Since yours is a year old it should be flowering again.

If you live up north you probably can still cool it by placing it in a entry hall or basement. Just do not move it to cool too fast. Let it become adjusted to the temerature change gradually.