Hi, Chintu. Leaving room lights on won't help-- they're too far away. Light falls off in intensity by half for every foot away from the source-- so at 8' from the light you are getting 1/126 of the light. The best discussion of growing and flowering phals indoors that I've seen was written by Peter Lin of Big Leaf Orchids, specifically for new indoor growers. The url is below. A few minutes spent reading (and maybe printing) Peter's remarks will repay you richly in confidence about how to care for your orchid. As for whether your phal would benefit from grow lights -- depends on how far you want to go in this enterprise. Some of us use lights to get that bit more out of our orchids. But it isn't always necessary. There's a good discussion of supplemental lights for phals at Bedford Orchids. Go to the site, then scroll down the page about half way for the culture notes. I do agree with richard and others above, tho. If you've gotten it to spike in the light you have, you're doing fine and no need to change anything. Good luck, and enjoy your success! Here is a link that might be useful: Phal growing for new indoor growers

Leave it the way it is, just support the arching spike with a stake- gently tie to the stake without much pressure- let it do it's thing! I am on a roll for spike breaks this year- none for the last 10 years!!

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.

thanks all. i'll decide this weekend. the plant just grew a huge new beautiful leaf, so, it's clearly doing well. i'm not so sure it is going to rebloom from the same stem if I leave it completely alone and don't cut it at all. So, my choice is really to cut it to a node or cut the whole thing down to the crown. Hmmm.... arthurm: i've see your pic before and read many posts about whether or not to cut the spike. I posted my thread because I still couldn't decide what to do.