Greetings

[gehentogo]

Hi everybody,

I am a novice, with just four orchids so far. The reason I got them is because my wife moved (we live in different cities due to our careers), and I took them over because she thought my apartment would have better light. So far, all three of my Phalaenopsi (is that the correct plural?) have been blooming like crazy. They love it here. My other mystery orchid is growing like crazy, but hasn't bloomed since we bought it a couple years ago.

Anyway, one of the Phals my wife had lost all of it's leaves but one, tiny scrawny one. There seems to be some dead tissue above it that is preventing any other leaves from growing there. It bloomed twice so far, anyway, and now has grown a Keiki (is that right? I have been doing a lot of googling orchids last weekend). One of the others has a Keiki, also, that is rather well developed. It even bloomed itself.

My problems so far are these:

1) I tend to get a bit long-winded and if you are still reading you must really be hard-core. Way to go!

2) The plants that are growing Keiki's are looking a bit run down. I am guessing they are stressed. I would like to cut off the Keiki's and replant them without killing the mother plants if possible.

3) The other Phalaenopsis is just finishing blooming, and has completely outgrown its' pot. Plus, there are several dead roots that must have been standing in water at one point (being new to this art, it took me a short time to figure out not to do that). I would like to re-pot this one, and perhaps the others if they need it (do they need it?).

4) I bought some orchid 'soil' at the local ginourmous plant store. Somewhere I read I should boil it. Is this the best thing to do for these plants?

Thanks, and I look forward to growing some beautiful plants.

[Chubidubi]

gehentogo

Try posting some pics of your orchids so that we can see what's going on and give you better advice

[gehentogo]

Oh, yeah. Sorry. I plan on it. I meant to introduce myself a bit and got all excited about my orchids I didn't say anything. Anyway, I work for the US Army in Schweinfurt, Germany, and my wife works for the German government in Munich, which is about 2 1/2 hours away. So, I have a little apartment I stay at while at work, with these four orchids, and go see my wife on the weekends. Her orchids have issues of their own. Anyway, I look forward to participating in this forum, I have some pictures of some wild orchids I stumbled across in the Alps this summer I will need some assistance identifying.

thanks,

[dgenovese1]

Gehentogo,

Welcome to the OB

I look forward to your photos and future posts.