Keiki and Mama Phal - how to care for both!

[greenpassion]

Originally Posted by estación seca

Wow, Camille, that plant is incredible! Be sure and propagate it and give it to other good growers. Seems like a great clone.

Yeah! I want one for sure!!

[camille1585]

Originally Posted by estación seca

Wow, Camille, that plant is incredible! Be sure and propagate it and give it to other good growers. Seems like a great clone.

I still have 2 of the keikis but they are in my diseased collection at home. Some strange yellow pitting disease that I'm still waiting on an ID on from the lab. It breaks my heart to think I may have to trash them. Unless I can find a place to get them mericloned?

They have also proven tricky to grow into full sized plants. They bloom so much that there's no energy left for leaves and roots. So I let each spike bloom once then hack it off entirely to prevent reblooming and keikis.

[greenpassion]

Do you remember where you got it? I'd really love to have one...

[estación seca]

Camille, talk to commercial hybridizers, and don't destroy the plants until you are sure nobody wants them. That degree of floriferousness is exceptional. Hybridizers might want to use it in breeding to get that floriferousness into other breeding lines. Even if the plant is diseased the pollen might be clean, or the plant might produce clean offspring.

greenpassion, Camille's plant is either a single unusual seedling or a mutation that happened during meristem cloning. It is highly unlikely other plants like it exist. And she is in Europe; it is extremely difficult to move orchids legally between Europe and the US.

[camille1585]

Originally Posted by greenpassion

Do you remember where you got it? I'd really love to have one...

At a garden center in France 10 years ago. I never ever saw it for sale again. The trade name on the label is Phal Pink Panther. But there is a lot of confusion around this because while there is a registered hybrid with this name it's not this one, the parentage is impossible, it would never produce this sort of offspring. So a commercial grower gave as a trade name the proper registered name of a different Phal...

I recently saw a look-alike on a German grower's site, I'll see if I can find it again.
Edit: found it: Phal. Mem. Henry Wallbrunn x luedde - violacea- Orchideen der Schwerter Orchideenzucht
The Phal Memoria Henry Wallbrunn parent looks most like my plant, and it's pulchra x gigantea


---------- Post added at 10:48 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:46 PM ----------

If you Google the name, you'll see it's not unique as quite a few other people in Europe have/had it. But whether the floriferousness is unique, I don't know.

[Lailamarafie]

Originally Posted by camille1585

This was the plant when it had 6 spikes (4 flowering- one of which also had a keiki) and 2 old spikes with keikis. Blooms last 6-8 months on this Phal, probably because of the thick waxy substance of the blooms. The plant committed suicide a couple months after this photo. The second photo is the mature keikis in bloom. The commercial name is Phal Pink Panther, I never did find out if it has a real registered name.


Phal. Pink Panther by Camille, on Flickr


Phal. Pink Panther by Camille, on Flickr

Quite sad that such a beauty killed itself off!!
I never really knew about phals doing this until you mentioned it.

I have been promising to repot one of my sisters when it stopped blooming, it seemed to be in a perpetual state of flower- I reckon for about a year. I went there today and noticed all the flower had died off and they're are about 8 spikes, all still look kinda okay but maybe his plant was multitasking?! It's hugely overgrown it's pot and it's roots are wild! I'm going to repot on Sunday and hope for the best!!

[greenpassion]

Thank you E.S., and Camille. Camille you've been a lucky one with that phal! I'm envious

---------- Post added at 05:49 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:43 PM ----------

And Laila (I've shortened it as I don't know your name ) It's kinda funny running into your post. My sister lives in Oakland, CA, and she's totally new orchids. She recently sent me pics of her phal that she's had about 6 months, and I in turn sent her an orchid "rescue" kit. Her phal was in one of those clear liners with no other aeration, packed in moss. I sent her a clear well ventilated plastic pot with some bark mix (with a little spag as to not shock the plant in it's repot) and some MSU fertilizer. So like you, I'm sort of rescuing too.

[Lailamarafie]

Originally Posted by greenpassion

Thank you E.S., and Camille. Camille you've been a lucky one with that phal! I'm envious

---------- Post added at 05:49 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:43 PM ----------

And Laila (I've shortened it as I don't know your name ) It's kinda funny running into your post. My sister lives in Oakland, CA, and she's totally new orchids. She recently sent me pics of her phal that she's had about 6 months, and I in turn sent her an orchid "rescue" kit. Her phal was in one of those clear liners with no other aeration, packed in moss. I sent her a clear well ventilated plastic pot with some bark mix (with a little spag as to not shock the plant in it's repot) and some MSU fertilizer. So like you, I'm sort of rescuing too.

How did her rescue go?! I've always tended to stay away from the ones they pack in moss.
We're in the U.K., just outside London, my sister has hers in a conservatory, which i think the orchids like because of the light from the frosted glass ceiling, warm days and cool night. I thought that she was lucky that this particular one kept flowing, until I realise they do it out of stress! I must admit, I really don't know a great deal about phals, it's only been since reading up, repotting my own and getting on here that I've started to learn more. I kinda work intuitively, but the wealth of knowledge, support and kindness of the members on this board is invaluable.

I know so many people that just throw them out once the stop flowering too! So sad! I'm encouraging a friend at work to bear with hers and trust they'll flower again if she cares for them a little.

I'm about to inherit three more from my brother and his wife since they just moved to Toronto, I'm pretty much going to be the Orchid Lady! Haha!!
Laila x

[greenpassion]

Yeah! My sister called me her 'Orchid Whisperer"! I've just sent the 'kit' so she'll be doing her repot soon. This week I'd guess. Maybe 20 or more of my phals are ones I rescued from a local florist. They don't very often sell the ones that have 'gone by' and I've gotten them for $5.00. I've told her to join this board, but for now she wants me to be her teacher. Ha! 7 years in and I'm still a budding student. (is there a pun there?)