Your orchid is fine, the only thing that is dead is the old flowering spike. Cut it off at the base. You have to provide conditions that will encourage the plant to commence growing a new spike. Perhaps the plant is not getting enough light and temperature variation. Some light reading in the link. If you can give further details about where the plant is growing/watering/how far from window/fertilizer and so on, more info. will come from other forum members. Here is a link that might be useful: Garden Forum FAQ.

Rugby and Marge --- thank you! That looks exactly like the two trees here! Missing, maybe I am totally confused with my forums. I could have sworn there was an "ID the Plant" or "Plant ID" or something like that. It definitely wouldn't have been more than 2 years ago. :-) Larry, I do know that. I've no idea why I wrote it out, silly me haha.

Well, the fragrant "honeysuckle" that most people are probably familiar with from childhood is Lonicera japonica, which is a vine. The above one is a different honeysuckle species (Lonicera maackii) that grows as a shrub that can be limbed up to be a multi-trunked small tree, but has flowers that are similar (but non-fragrant) to the vine form and yes, it is considered an invasive. The problem is that when the flowers are pollinated, the resultant seeds are eaten by birds and distributed all over the place, which inturn starts up new plants where they aren't wanted - particularly along the edges of woods, which they love. If you like honeysuckle, you might want to get one of the native species like Lonicera sempervirens or coral honeysuckle (there are many cultivars of this - eg., 'Alabama Crimson', 'Magnifica', 'Blanche Sandman' which is below) like this: which has some beautiful large flowers and is a slower grower and of course is native. There are also native crosses like 'Goldflame', which is fragrant and 'Mandarin', which has bronzey new growth. The hummingbirds love these. Sadly the asian shrub and vine forms of honeysuckle have started to push out much prettier natives but fortunately there has been alot of selection, breeding, and availability of the natives at many nurseries and even the big box stores!

I do try to be helpful, and I try to write with the idea that more than one person will read what I say and hopefully gain more enjoyment from the growing experience because of something they learned. I enjoy nurturing plants, and look at nurturing people who also enjoy nurturing plants as a natural extension of my own growing experience. If I couldn't know I was helping, my efforts would be for naught & I'd quickly lose interest; which is why kind comments like yours are always appreciated. Thank you ..... and I enjoyed your story. ;-) In reference to the part you italicized ...... I always figured it's pretty hard to push someone up a ladder unless they were wanting to climb. ;-) So from what I gather from your linked post is this: • I should definitely repot my plant to a slightly larger container and not just pot up. It hasn't been done in at least four and a half years. You can repot or divide PLs for best outcome. If you repot, it might not need to go into another pot, but the root structure of PLs doesn't make them top candidates for root operations related to repotting. You can also simply cut the leaves off each plant and most of the roots, divide the plants and repot into the same pot they came from. They'll recover quickly & take right off. Of course, you have to look at a bare pot for a month, or just stick it in bright indirect light outdoors somewhere & ck on water needs every few days. • When repotting, I should remove all old soil and prune any large roots, upward traveling roots, and "j-hooked" roots. When I do this, where do I clip? As high as possible? This is the part that scares me the most! Honestly, IO'd divide thios plant and save the root pruning learning experience for plants that really need it as part of their care regimen. • I should find a general potting soil (I'm thinking Miracle Grow brand because, as a beginner, it is the only thing I know of that has a seemingly good reputation) and mix it with Natures Helper and Perlite. If this is correct, what should my ratio be? MGs reputation is more a result of its advertising campaign than its performance record. If I were you, I'd seek out a source for pine bark in an appropriate size. If you can find it, you can use perlite and the MG potting soil as small fractions of the soil (added to a large fraction of pine bark) to make a very good soil. A good soil can eliminate over-watering concerns and make a sound nutritional supplementation program monkey easy. See pine bark from 3 different suppliers at 3, 6, & 9 o'clock, and finished soil in the middle: When I refill the new container with the soil mix, how far up should I fill it? There are a lot of stem cuttings that are visible. That's probably not the correct terminology but I assume you understand what I mean. Should I clean this up? Should I bury these any if at all? The soil level should be .5-1" below the pot rim, minimum; and the plants should be planted so the crown is above the soil line to prevent crown rot. Lastly, if I remove all of the old soil, will I need to pack in new soil to fill the void at the thickest part of the roots? I'm sure some of these are silly questions but I truly have no idea what I'm doing and this plant means a lot to me. I want to do what's best for it. I use a wooden dowel rod, sharpened in a pencil sharpener (same tool as you can use as a tell to show when plants need water) to work soil into the voids between roots. See the 2 tools on the right. They serve the same purpose, except I favor the white one I made. Al