Sharry Baby "sweet fragrance" spiking

[Pilot]

I bet they smell delicious.

[NYCorchidman]

They sure do!

[NYCorchidman]

in the day light!

mmmm~ delicious!!!

[NYCorchidman]

After almost having my eyes speared by SB flower spike, I decided to do something about it.
I already trimmed off the last one foot of the spike, but that's not enough.

Last night I thought I would just play around with the spike and bent it down making a circle.
I actually like it this way and thought "how come I never thought about this before?"
amazed by how flexible the spike was.

Next time it blooms, I think I will try the heart shape.

[MollieMcP]

Nice looking plant! I've got one of these in spike now. Will the pseudobulbs re-bloom? Or is it only on new growth?

[NYCorchidman]

I would say all oncidium and its related intergeneric hybrids bloom once once per pb. They grow new pbs and new spikes will come out of them.

[RosieC]

I agree that I think it's just on new growth. Mine always seems to be on growth from the year just gone.

Just now I'm doing the happy dance because I thought my Sharry Baby 'Sweet Fragrance" was not going to bloom this year after it sulked last year following repotting. However I spotted a spike yesterday. Just the one, but it's still a spike

[Discus]

My Onc. Sharry Baby "sweet fragrance" bloomed this year on a pretty large spike; its flowers smelled pleasant, but not in any way chocolatey (or even vanilla-y), which was a bit disappointing :/

[james mickelso]

Oncidiums and their cousins all bloom once from each pbulb. If the pbulb is very healthy it will usually produce two spikes. And it will usually produce two new pbulbs. The main reason they won't bloom is when they get repotted at the wrong time. Oncids and their cousins don't like to have their roots disturbed. They will skip a year and sometimes two.

[RosieC]

The not spiking from old bulbs is not actually always true. It surprised me as well! Yes it's true in the vast majority of cases, but not always.

I have a Colmanara Wildcat 'Botcat' which had two spikes from a bulb, then had several new growths eaten off (I think by a centipede). I was on the verge of throwing it out because I thought all the eyes would have gone when a new spike came up... from a 2 year old bulb which had already had two spikes! It came out from between two leaves closer to the bulb than the original two spikes.

I decided to keep it long enough to enjoy the flowers. When it was finishing blooming I noticed a new growth coming from eyes on one of the eaten off bits (and it was really only a couple of cm tall when eaten off so there was hardly anything for this new growth to grow out from. I still have it and it's just finished blooming again. But that's an aside... the point is that it DID bloom from an old growth, and really surprised me because it is accepted wisdom they don't do that. It's not done it again either