Phal has keikies, 1 is blooming, will removing other 1 hurt blooming?
I'm a new member & never posted before. [Attached is a PDF with content of fairly long post, about my Phalaenopsis orchid & its keikies \ PDF was redacted by Admin and text inserted below as indicated] that I'm trying to submit as new thread. Did it work, or do I have to directly type in all the text of message I want to post? I'm using phone & message box displays extremely small, so typing into it is difficult
ADMIN: Text of the pdf follows:
Hi all! I'm a new member & a novice, so am happy to have found this Orchid Board group online! In Nov. 2022 I got my 1st orchid as a gift. It was a beautiful purple Phalaenopsis orchid, with 2 stems in glorious bloom! It bloomed for 12 wks, & that long of a blooming period on an indoor plant totally fascinated me, & now I'm hooked! I've done online research to try & educate myself about my Phal, & now I'm looking forward to reading about my fellow members real life knowledge & experiences with orchids to help me on my journey as a new Phal Mom. So I hope you will bear with this lengthy post that describes my journey so far, & why I already need your advice.
My Phal is potted in a clear orchid pot with a barklike mixture & I water it every 8-10 days. When its blooming was over, I cut off the top of the 2 green bloom stems, above a node, & started lightly appying orchid fertilizer every 3rd watering, hoping it would bloom again. To my surprise, 3 keikies formed instead of flower spikes! One stem grew 2 keikies very close together, & the other stem
grew 1 keiki. After a year of growing on Mother’s original & still green stems, all 3 keikies had good roots & fairly long leaves, & the pot needed a little propping to keep it upright. Mother stayed healthy, but she hadn’t put out any kind of new growth from her own main stem. I concluded her energy was going to support the 3 keikies instead of her own growth. I had read about keikies & decided it was time to be brave enough to experiment with removing the top keiki from the stem with 2 keikies on it. This keiki only had 3 roots, but 1 root was 5 inches
long, another was 3” & shortest was over 2“ long. It also had 4 substantial leaves, 2 were 6” long, another was 4”, & shortest was 3” long. I thought it was viable enough overall to pot as a new plant, & hoped Mother plant would benefit from having 1 less baby to feed. I did have 1 minor concern - which was about the 2nd keiki being so close on the stem to the keiki being removed, so only 1"
of the Mother's orig. stem could be cut off with that keiki to help anchor it in the new pot. But since that issue would be ongoing no matter when that keiki was
removed, I felt I needed to proceed.
I put cinnamon on the cut spot of Mother plant’s stem & the keiki was potted in a clear orchid pot, with fresh, fast
draining, coarse blend orchid potting mix as its substrate. I had presoaked the mix for an hr. & then let it drain for several hours. The keiki's clear pot was put on a ˝” tall drainage platform with holes in it, inside a decorative pot with more air holes as well. The very short section of stem attached to the keiki was not long enough to anchor the keiki upright. I buried the longest of it’s 3 aerial roots
in the substrate to act somewhat as an anchor, & in the hope it would adapt to become a substrate root. I placed the short section of Mother’s bloom stem horizontally & slightly pressed it into substrate, to try & stabilize the keiki's location & lift it a wee bit above the surface, to hopefully prevent water from entering the main leaf stem, & crown rot could be avoided. The keiki's leaves &
2 aerial roots were all long enough to be also be slightly lifted by resting on the outside pot’s rim. At that point, I hadn’t read anything about soaking the keiki & its roots in water before potting it, to make the roots more pliable, so unfortunately the long aerial root I buried in substrate cracked a little near it's top when it was worked into pot. I worried the crack created a path for bacterial infection, & not knowing what else to do, I put a tiny bit of cinnamon on top of root where it crack & hoped for the best. I put the decorative pot on pebbles in a wide dish with a little water on bottom to provide humidity for the plant. I placed it in same room as Mother plant, but away from the window in a lower light area with good air movement. The root that cracked when it was buried in substratewas shriveled up above the surface within a month of potting the keiki, but 3 mos. later the leaves & roots still looked healthy even though there was no sign
of new growth. I’d read new growth was slow to start, so I stayed patient. In the meantime, a month after removing that 1st keiki, the Mother plant grew 2 new
leaves & 2 new aerial roots & I was happy.
Oddly, Mother plant did not have ANY aerial roots when I received it as gift - which I thought was unusual after I read so many articles about Phal. orchids that always mentioned their aerial roots. But the gift plant was blooming great & healthy looking from day one, so a wait
& see approach seemed appropriate while in my learning curve. In Dec. 2024, the keiki that had always been growing alone on 1 of the Mother’s original bloom stems, sprouted a flower spike - a major, delightful surprise!! The flower spike grew rapidly to a length of 11 iches & formed 4 flower buds. The 1st bloom opened on Jan. 14, 2025, with the other 3 buds opening in succession,
for all to be in full bloom on Jan. 25, 2025. Today is March 19, 2025, it is still in full bloom, & I hope it blooms for 12 wks. like its Mother! I feel I have now given enough info to finally get to the reasons I need some
advice. The blooming keiki is at top of 1 of Mother plant’s long orig. flower stems, & the other keiki on top of the 2nd long orig. Mother stem (that 1st keki was cut from) has grown alot too, & now the whole plant has become very top heavy. It’s pot has to be carefully propped on 4 sides to keep the plant from falling over, which would be a disaster! I know I shouldn’t disturb the blooming
keiki at all, or blooms could drop. But the other keiki seems more than ready to be removed from Mother; it now has 6 long roots ranging in length from 8” to 6”,
& 1 newer 2” root that formed when 7th leaf sprouted about 3 wks. ago. But I don’t know if cutting this keiki from Mother now would indirectly have a negative effect on the blooming keiki on Mother’s other orig. stem. I definitely don’t want that to happen! Have any of you had a similar experience & can advise me if this overgrown, non-blooming keiki can be removed with no ill effect on the blooming one, or if I should wait to do it & hope the plant doesn't fall over from the increasing top heaviness?
The 2nd thing I need advice about is what has happened with the 1st keiki I removed from Mother & potted. After about 5 mos of it still looking healthy like it did when potted, but still not having new growth, its leaves suddenly began to droop & I was puzzled. There were no pests on keiki or on/in the substrate, & no rot that I could see. I haven't overwatered or underwatered it - I have used the “weight test” that has worked well with Mother plant, to determine when to water the potted keiki. About a month before the drooping started, I saw a ľ” root under one of the leaves & thought it might be a new root beginning to grow, but it never got any longer & then I vaguely remembered a short root was beginning to grow on the keiki when I removed it from Mother plant. The ľ” root I saw wasn’t a new root, it was an old one that had just been covered up by the low lying leaf. Even though I had read not to increase light until seeing signs of new growth on a newly potted keiki, which I really hadn't seen, I thought more light might have a chance at rejuvenating it, so I moved it closer to window. But that hasn't helped & it continues to slowly but surely look worse. Any ideas on how to help my sickly potted keiki, or is it a lost cause by now? I just wish I knew what went wrong with the 1st keiki I potted, so I can avoid it when I do cut off the overgrown keiki still on Mother plant & pot it. I would appreciatiate any help, ideas, or insight on both these issues & any suggestions on how to proceed
Last edited by WaterWitchin; 03-21-2025 at 10:54 AM..
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