Is it safe to remove keikis with a flower spike?

[Todiandbess]

I have a rescue orchid, bought from a second hand plant seller nearby. It appears to be a type like ones sold at a local supermarket. It had a tag reading Dendrobium, part shade indoor plant and water weekly. What kind of Dendrobium is anyone's guess, probably a mix of heaps.

It was in a bad way and didn't respond to being placed with my Kingianums, in fact it looked worse. I placed it in my orchid recovery room(bathroom) where it regained some colour and gave off 8 keikis. 1 was eaten by a slug and the other was crushed as its neighbours grew over it. The remainder are happy and getting bigger, though the mother is looking worse again. The biggest keiki appears to have a flower spike coming up which leads to my question: remove the keikis to save the mother or let them be?

[WhiteRabbit]

How bad does the parent look? Depleted canes? How are the roots?


** thread moved to "Beginner Discussion" forum **

[dbarron]

And does the keiki(s) have roots of their own. If they have a fair to good amount of roots, you may well want to just start over with a new plant.
A plant that looks bad makes me feel bad (my private example is wrinkled leaves on miltonias)...so I'd probably be happy to start over with one that is small but looks good.

[Orchid Whisperer]

Can't really make a judgement without a good picture or two; can you post some?

[Todiandbess]

Hello, thanks for the replies. Sorry for the late pictures, my computer died half way through the upload. I have two pictures attached!

[LizB88]

Your plant looks like a Dendrobium Nobile. The plant does not look too bad. I think you can gently remove the two large keikis and plant them on their own little pots or right next to the mother plant (which will make for a bigger display once they flower). The keikis should snap very easily, they look like they have lots of good roots and seem very healthy to me. Good luck.

[Todiandbess]

Thankyou all for you advice, sadly, there has been an accident and the keikis have had to be removed and potted. I have used the same mix as my Kingianums, all I had left. The mother was sitting on top of a bed of dirt! Which is why the whole thing toppled over. I was able to leave keikis on the mother and given her some better mix.

I am curious about the flower spike though, if two spikes are the norm for this type?

[WhiteRabbit]

From the location, and appearance of the spikes, I would conclude that this is NOT a nobile type.
Multiple spikes on a cane is normal for many types of Dens

[LizB88]

Sonya, I think you are right is not a nobile type. The first pictures look to me like a nobile, now that I see the second pics, it looks more like a phal den type, and I could still be wrong.

It looks that they are doing well in the new media. Good work.

[WhiteRabbit]

Originally Posted by LizB88

Sonya, I think you are right is not a nobile type. The first pictures look to me like a nobile, now that I see the second pics, it looks more like a phal den type, and I could still be wrong.

It looks that they are doing well in the new media. Good work.

With some Dens I won't venture a guess as to what type it might be without blooms or spikes on them