Hi Krishi, check you local craigslist. I saw many people in your area sell those cymbidium for less, some free too. I bought mine for mdh's birthday, that made in love in orchid since then. Away, I am looking for this bulb too.

I personally cut the flower stem off after all the flowers have fallen off. Some people say it's better for the development of the new pseudobulbs if you cut the flower stem off 4 weeks after the last flower bud has opened but I am not sure if it really makes that much of a difference. Like Howard, I think that watering every 1 1/2 weeks is probably too infrequent. There is a great site' "Phil's Orchid World", http://www.angelfire.com/or3/orchidsnz/culture/cultureframe.html that tells you how to care for cymbidiums month by month. Keep in mind that this guy lives in New Zealand, so you have to adapt his suggestions to your conditions. The website of the Orchid Society Council of Victoria (OSCOV) is also a good source of information. Again, keep in mind that most of the areas in Victoria, Australia are frost-free and provide us with great conditions to grow cymbidiums outside and these websites therefore don't cover growing cymbidiums inside the house in winter, which is what you have to do if you live in an area that experiences frost. Good luck with your culture and hopefully you will be able to rebloom your orchids.

Hi freki, Honestly, there are so many answers I could give you here, but with orchids, you will learn that the answer is often "it depends". First, potting. (P.S. Don't worry about pot depth, Cymbidiums love deep pots.) Personally, I pot most of my orchids, Cymbidiums included, in a mixture of small orchid bark, New Zealand sphagnum moss and horticultural perlite, with a dash of charcoal. However, I'm in the Ottawa area, where summers are warm and very humid, winters are long and cold, and my orchids spend most of the year inside under lights to supplement what natural light they get. With this mix, in my conditions, I water once a week in winter and two or three times in summer depending on the size of the pot, and I repot every 12 to 18 months. If you're in the West, for example, your conditions will be very different. This is the ultimate advantage of joining an orchid society - you can talk to growers who have similar conditions to you and find out what works for them. You can also take a look at the medium it's trying to grow out of. If it's that vigorous with it, maybe try for something similar. As for growing conditions. One of the reasons you may be finding so many contradictions is that there are different types of Cymbidiums each with different cultural requirements. Standard Cymbidiums need as much light as you can possibly give them and night temps down to pretty much freezing in the fall. Chinese Cymbidiums are more forgiving, and will bloom with about the same amount of light as Oncidiums (more than Phals, less than Cattleyas) and a moderate cool down in the fall. And then there are hybrids between the two, with breeders wanting the amazing flowers of standard Cyms with the easy growing habits of Chinese Cyms. A good rule of thumb, though, is to give your Cymbidium as much light as it can stand (experiment by gradually putting it in more light, and see when the leaves start feeling hot to the touch, which means pull it back a little). As well, give it more water when it is actively growing (water it just as it us starting to be completely dry and be diligent about fertilizer) than when you don't (at those times, water when it's dry and fertilize very lightly if at all). I have not found that they are very particular about humidity most of the time, only when it's flowering. If your Cymbidium is putting out new growths and each of those growths is larger than the previous one, you're doing very well, just be patient. My first Cymbidium produced many new growths for almost two years without a single flower. I was thinking real hard about getting rid of it when the bloody thing put out ten spikes. So keep on going, and welcome to the wonderful and sometimes frustrating world of orchids. Julie

Robert..THANK YOU for sharing! I am in love with them and if I had access to get one, I would right now.. I hope this night finds you happy and all is well. You are a good man and I am glad I met you. Thanks for thinking of us. By the way, I did pick up an Orchid today. I was at a nursery I had never been to before and just roaming, when I could smell something very sweet. I followed it, the fragrance that is for at least a good ten feet, when I just so happened to stumble across this orchid which somehow happened to land in my loving arms... Mike:-)