Hman, I scanned through the Scaffolds archive and couldn't find the article. Bugs me when I can't find the reference. Scaffolds recommended oil in the fall for pear blister mite, so maybe it wasn't them who mentioned the risk of winter damage from dormant Fall applications of oil. A quick Google search did yield a reference that a Fall oil app. can cause winter damage by delaying dormancy, but that's not the reference I was looking for. For the last couple years I've not put on a Fall oil spray (except for a little as a sticker). I never liked the way a 2% oil application turned the bark dark before winter. Then when I read (somewhere) that it can make the trees more susc. to winter damage, I started saving the main oil spray for the Spring as either a dormant, or delayed dormant. Saying all that, I never noticed a problem with winter damage from a Fall application. Have you ever seen winter bark damage from applying oil in the fall, or damage from a dormant oil spray applied near freezing weather?

Hi, liza. Congratulation on getting those spikes. That means you are doing lots of things right. Your last two spikes look fine to me. As to why they seem to have slowed down-- try increasing the light and warmth--maybe move them closer to the window, or pull the curtain back for them so they get a couple of hours of sun. The sun is increasing in intensity this time of year, so you would get the gradual increase in light from that. Just make sure the leaves are not getting too warm to the touch. Your first one, the one that had all the buds blast. A lot of different things can cause it, so in any individual case, your guess is as good as mine. You say it needs repotting. I would say, go ahead and repot, see how healthy the plant is below. A lot of specialists say a phal will put out a 3-month spurt of growth after a repot, and this is the time of year for that. If the roots are okay, I wouldn't worry any more about it, just wait til it sets another spike (which could be quite soon if it's a healthy plant). If it has problems, then there's a lot of threads suggesting things you can do to help a phal in trouble. Again, congratulations on some good growing.

Baroness, if there are some nodes on the stalk with the broken end you might get a side branch to spike, otherwise it probably will do nothing. "in situ, who cuts the spikes off of the phals?" That statement applies to any aspect of any branch of horticulture. I could stop all work on my messy garden (casual cottage) and what would be the result? I'll be a an orchid show in a few weeks time and if the customer is just buying a Phal. as a cheap bunch of flowers, i'll tell them the cut down to the node stuff, but, i like to think that people asking questions here are interested in growing better flowers. Here is the story of Betty (again). Betty was a great orchid grower. she had a collection of thousands of orchids and won the annual championship at several orchid societies many times. Now those Championships are won by people who have big collections across many Genera and you get points for just benching a plant. She had this species Phal. that bloomed for years and years. It had a long, long spike with hundreds of flower scars and a few sad dispirited flowers at the end. It was benched in the species other section year after year just to gain that one precious point. Brooke, not sure of the latest name for Phal. decumbens. It seems to have had many names over the years. The plant pictured in an above post is a mini 3 inches high with 3 inch leaves, just the ticket for the narrow windowsill in the kitchen. The flower spike is not very long, but is a sequential bloomer, so i go SNIP at the base after enjoying the display for three months or so. Blooms like clockwork, every summer.

Violacea (the phal you linked to) is definitely one of the species that continues to bloom off the same spike for several years. It is one of the ancestors of many of the novelty "reds" I mentioned. The light green leaves are characteristic, and so is the short spike. I would keep the spike as long as the plant looks healthy and continues to put out new leaves. I have cut the spike off a couple of this type when the roots were compromised and the leaves got wilty, but leave the spike alone otherwise. Good luck. These are my favorite type of phal. I absolutely love them. I would also like to add that I cut the spikes off phals for aesthetic reasons-- a tall spike starts to look really ugly with just one or two flowers on it. But that isn't true of short-spike plants. They look fine with just one or two flowers on the short spike. Enjoy your flowers.