Castrate that orchid!

[bil]

I bought a Cattleya Tristar bouquet last year. Nice plant and it has about 16 decent sized flowers on each spike.

I noticed that one of the flowers had started to develop a seed pod, and I thought 'So a bee has actually managed to fertilise it' and I didn't do anything, and all of a sudden, all of the damn flowers dropped off. So, I thought 'OK, need to remember, if that gets a flower fertilised, you need to get rid of it asap to prevent flower drop. So, this year, I watched the two spikes like a hawk, and on the first spike, when I noticed one developing a pod, I cut the flower off at once. Then another developed, and I cut that off too. Then I was bitching to someone about it and he replied "Oh yes! Those self fertilising orchids are a pain."

Duh!

So, with the second spike I immediately yanked out the pollinaria, and so far so good. This spike has lasted much longer than the first one did, and next year I shall be onto it as soon as the first flower opens.

I'm sure that this is old hat to a lot of people, but it was new to me, and it may be new to some others too. I have made a small hook up to take the pollinaria out with one straight pull, as if I try and mimic a bee taking it out, ie by trying to get it to stick to my finger, I'm afraid that I will push it back and risk fertilising the flower.