To trim or not

[Smitha]

I bought this Phal in Feb when it was in bloom & after a few days all the flowers withered away.From then on till date I'm fertilising it once a week weakly & watering it as needed.The stem of this plant is still green & so I did not cut it off...Now a few days back I noticed a node looking diff than the others(i think its goin to start a spike).But after goin thro a couple of posts here I understand that once the flowers wither away u need to cut it...I'm confused now as to whether to cut it off ir jus leave it so that it would bloom again.And pls tell me if this is what it luks like b4 it shoots a spike...All of ur advice will be a gr8 help..Thx in advance.

[dounoharm]

since it has already started a side spike i would leave it as long as the plant is healthy and not suffering....sometimes if a plant is weak from blooming its best to cut the spike off and let the main plant recouperate some.....definately after this bloom cut the spike...

[tucker85]

The plant knows better than we do. It will either spike there and if you're lucky you'll get some more flowers, or the spike will turn yellow and then brown and dry up. Cutting the spike off certainly won't hurt the plant but then you'll never know if it was going to bloom further or not. Good luck.