AAGGGGHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

[sweetjblue]

I'm so mad at myself right now I could scream!! Here's why.

I've had this seedling for a few years, ever since it was a baby with a leaf span of 3 inches. This year it FINALLY decided to bloom for me. I've been watching this spike develope for the last 2 months. Buds getting darker and darker and DARKER!! Oh I know this is going to be a GOOD one!! I've been waiting and waiting for her to bloom and it should be within the week!
So today I go to check on it. Pick up the plant, say to myself, Yup self it's going to be really dark, a beauty!. Put the plant back down, turn around to go finish making dinner, and then I hear that dreaded sound of the pot hitting the floor!!! There's my baby on the floor!
So you know what's just happened right??? Yep the spike broke!! But not where my little baby might grow a side shoot, OH NO, right at the very first node of the spike!!
I took the broken spike and showed hubby. He said "I'm sorry" but I can tell he doesn't understand how I feel, not really. I've been waiting so long for this.
And sure enough she was going to be dark, darker than a Phal Black Jack. All her parts are that dark,even the lip.
She has a cute little white nose and just a small circle of white leopard spotting on the inside of her sepals and petals.
So I ended up putting the broken spike in a glass of water in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, the other buds will open but I don't hold out much hope.

Thanks for listening to me rant and rave, I know that some of you guys understand how I'm feeling right now. *sniff, sniff*

Judi

[Bud]

Im so sorry, Judi...it would have been awesome to see pictures of the bloom...oh well wait for the next blooms on the spike right beside that old one...the plant will give the signal to produce another if you broke the main one...hybrids does that

[The Mutant]

Sometimes you just wish you could kick yourself in the butt... I've so far not managed to break any spikes off, but I know I will, I bet I'll break off one of the spikes on one of my P. equestris that I've been so eagerly anticipating to bloom just because I wrote this.

I really hope it puts out another spike or that it at least doesn't take a couple of years before it decides to make a new spike again.

The good thing though is that your hubby didn't do it!

[sweetjblue]

Thanks Bud & Mutant.
@ Bud Unfortunately there was just the one spike so my only hope is that she'll make a totally new one but I think I'll be waiting until next year.
Hopefully one of the buds on the spike in water will open, so there maybe or may not be a pic
@Mutant The only advice I could give you at this point is "look but don't touch". If I had only been more patient this wouldn't have happened. Only time I'd been lifting the pot was to water, but being so close to blooming I just had to check on her.
Heaven help him if hubby had done it!!

Judi

[Bud]

species will bloom once a year or twice if it is an established 5 year old specimen...but if it is a hybrid: it will spike after 4 months or whenever they can and much as they can...
Two weeks ago, I broke a Phal spike as large as a pencil all the way down to half an inch...it grew a new spike just beside it...I guess I gotta wait 3 months for it to bloom...but I was sleepless for a couple of days from guilt and remorse

[silken]

Oh so sorry about that spike. I know just how you feel as I had a similar day today. And my hubby didn't sound overly sympathetic either. My $#@$!% cat bit off the spike of my masdie that I have been trying to get to bloom for months. The spikes keep blasting and finally I had one that got taller than ever before and was looking healthy and good and like a real hope of blooming. I brought the plant in from the greenhouse to wash the leaves and my cat got on the counter and bit it right off. I too felt like AAAGGHHH!! It's exactly what I put in an e-mail to my sister when I vented!

Maybe because your Phal was ready to bloom, it will send out another spike now. I guess the only thing to be glad about is that the crown of the plant didn't snap off when it fell. Put in that perspective, hopefully you can accept what did happen. And maybe some buds will open from the spike in water

[MAli]

Sorry for your loss I know the feeling

Actually at least you still have the rest of the plant. I was looking at one of my tanks and decided that I didn't like the angle of a piece of wood on the background. Well I managed to drop that piece of driftwood with two orchids mounted on it. Ornithocephalus myrticola and Bulbophyllum tingabarinum The Bulbo had only four leaves and now there are three but the myrticola was completly squashed. I've been growing it for a year and a half and finally I was starting to get some new leaves I still haven't been able to let go and I have the remains in a little box. Like a coffin.

To top things a week later I was messing with my Lepanthes calodictyon and I dropped that too !!!!! It has also gone down from four leaves to three

The good news is that the reason I messed with it in the first place is to extract a couple of TINY hitchhikers which I believe to be Lepanthes telipogoniflora
It looks like at least one is starting to grow roots and maybe even a second leaf

I hope you get a new spike soon and that your cat didn't like the taste of the first spike

[Discus]

Everyone has stories like this:
Orchids on a Balcony: Epic Fail.
and I've had plants fall over and smash of spikes too - a phalaenopsis-type dendrobium for instance. But this year, it has 3 spikes coming along.

It's quite hard to relate the feeling to people who don't nurture slow-growing plants. Much like some people don't "get" the death of a pet.

A few weeks ago I was doing something silly with one of my mounted plants and it dropped straight on to a deflasked seedling and badly mangled some of the leaves :/

[Leafmite]

I do this quite often, unfortunately. If not the spike (normally the case), a few buds so that it will look weird. When I took my dendrobium to my OS meeting to show off the five gorgeous spikes, I had my spouse carry it in so the spikes would remain intact. Unfortunately, I carried it back into the house when we returned home and it was then minus a spike. The new paph I bought in bud in February? Oops. The list goes on. The worst is knocking off new leads I don't see when I repot new orchids. I did that once and felt awful.
I have a similar reaction when looking for sympathy from the family. Eye rolls. Then, "Won't it bloom again?" I really need to stay away from my orchids when they are in bloom.

[Gage]

I am so sorry to hear you lost your spike! I can't imagine how horrible that must feel, when it's a first time bloom. But like a lot of the other comments, I would agree that it will likely put up another spike. The blooms will be smaller and fewer than the original spike, but you will get to see what they look like! Good luck!

Gage