Thats why I've never been a fan of the oft repeated wooden skewer method. It always came back dry for me as well. Make no mistake about it, watering is an art form that takes a lot of practice and finesse to get a handle on. I've found that nothing short of touching the soil will give you any idea of how wet the media is. One concept I've found helpful in discerning watering needs is the "get dry, stay dry" concept. Some plants don't want to get dry at all (peace lilies, for example), others want to get dry/approach dry but not stay dry for long (this is your phals), and yet others want to get dry and stay dry (cactus). Now there is a world of difference between water for phals and cacti, but it gives you an idea. For your phals, when in doubt give it an extra day or two. When you touch the medium it should be a bit cool (residual moisture), but should not really feel any water per se. I'm watering my phals right now about every week and a half. During the summer, its almost every 3 days. Especially during the summer its ok to water when the plant is still kinda moist. Its metabolism is really high and can use the extra moisture. Its a buffer from drying out, which happens a hell of a lot quicker than during the winter (when you want to basically let it go dry). Clear as mud? Now, if you want to take all the guess work out of watering, consider investing in Semi-hydroponics. You can find all you need to know about this in the FAQ's at the top of the page. What direction is your window facing? They could very well need more light. Change your fertilizer to something with low and roughly equal numbers, like 5-5-5, or 5-9-7. You're using bloom booster fertilizer, and its giving the plant more potassium than it needs or uses. It won't fix much, but it gets you on the right track.

Oops! ment to publish this in exchanges! Sorry

I year ago a friend of mine and I jointly purchased a 13 cane plant from DUNU who delivered it to us in Santa Barbara. I had to sell on of my grand kids to pay for it. I got the numbers of canes wrong in my initial blurb. We split it into 7 cane and 6 cane plants and I won the coin toss and ended up with the 7 cane piece. As I said the last 2 canes were tenuous, leafless and poorly attached to the plant. It took major soul searching but I eventually separated them, they immediately fell apart and I now had 2 sorry looking canes. They sat there for a year and now are sporting a new growth each. Both my main plant and my friend's have a strong new growth and seem to be well on their way. It will take a couple of years until the 2 new plants will be worth looking at but maybe then I can recover some of my cost or make some very strong trades. In the mean time there is another Australian FCC making waves. D spec Yondi Tina Goliath FCC/AOC etc apparently was cloned and the small plants are now on the market. I got one for relatively little and have both the FCCs sitting side by side. The Yondi has 3 juvenile canes and is making a new one. My friend also got one. Because of the cloning I think we will see a lot of them. The Daylight Moon is still much more difficult to get so hopefully my 2 newbies will still be worth something when they are old enough to sell or trade. We have a few D speciosum nuts in Southern California so I'm sure there will be a demand for the plants. I have my eyes on a guy who has a nice collection of Avril's Gold and there is someone in San Diego who also has outstanding D speciosums. I'm keeping ny fingers crossed that the 2 new growths will thrive as that is not always the case. They represent the reason why one should never discard a worth wile orchid piece until it is truly dead. I'm also not a believer in the sphagnum in bag trick. If the cane has neither roots nor leaves, I believe it should be left to its own devices and water will only rot it. I mounted mine without moss or any other media and they got sprayed daily but dried off immediately after. Nick

Another view how the stalk/keiki arrangement works. When it finishes blooming, I'll flip the stalk down, tie it to the stake and let new plantlets develop. The bottom plant is the #1 keiki from last year and it is getting ready to make it's first flower stalk. This plant is in continuous bloom as each and every plantlet eventually will bloom. Nick