I wish I had Easy Going, it looks like a beauty, but my yellow has no peach, amber or pink veining or undertones. It's egg-yolk yellow and simply pales to lemon-cream with age. My main regret is that it blows too quickly to a very open, unattractive form. This describes my 'Easy Going'. Actually "the light green shiny foliage" comment makes me lean towards EG, also the growth habit of your standard. Livin Easy, Easy Going, and the offspring Hot Cocoa have very distinctive foliage, prickles, canes, and growth habit. What makes ID trickier in your case that you are in Europe, where there are cultivars we don't have here. Easy Going and Livin Easy are very popular as standards here--whether or not that is true in France, I have no idea. Usually though standard roses, which are much more expensive than the regular ones, are less apt to be an obscure variety because of the extra expense. So look at very common cultivars. Have you looked at Sunsprite and Sunflare? Might also be one of those. Easy Going foliage:

So let me try and explain "terminal spike" for you. This is when a phalaenopsis orchid sends a spike from the very top of the plant instead of on the side between the leaves which is where it normally appears. Now phals grow from the center up so by sending a spike there it indicates that the plant will no longer produce leaves and once it stops producing leaves then we all know what will happen. Plants are smart and once they realize that something is wrong they go into proprogation mode so they replicate themselves by sending out a keiki hoping to continue the generation. You might be wondering at this point what causes a terminal spike? Well sometimes just nature but sometimes other things goes wrong. Also please remember a spike does not mean a plant is healthy, a plant will send up a spike as a last resort hoping to get pollinated to continue its generation. Once it feels its in danger of dying, it will put all its energy into the spike. Your best bet is to as I said before check the roots if you can, green means good, brown means trouble. I have seen a phal send up a terminal spike and then send out leaves beside the spike and continued to grow but that's very rear. Or it will try and send out another keiki at the base of the plant, this is called a " basal keiki" . but that's another story. Please do a through check on the plant, try some better pics and let us see how best we can help. ( I hope I did not bore you to death with my lengthy explanation). VELLETA.

I have been following this thread off and on. Frankly controversies often lead to interesting bits of information and insight and I definitely like how Al handles them. And at the same time he takes the time to explain his reasoning behind them. Over the years I have started partially/fully defoliating some plants while transitioning from indoors to outdoors. Over the years I noticed Al encourage that for ficus and I tried that on several of my ficus and the results are quite spectacular. The reasoning behind it makes a lot of sense to me. here is a pure conjecture for what it is worth: Besides Al's reasoning I also suspect that dramatic change in UV exposure has something to do with it too. My hypothesis is that indoor leaves loose the 'natural sunscreen' that leaves have outdoors and cannot regain it back easily. UV is very high energy photons (UVA is 16x more energetic than red) and quite destructive. When a plant is slowly acclimatized, I suspect photosynthesis levels are increased but so does the energy wasted to deal with the destructive powers of UV. I have tried it (partially defoliating) on several other plants like guava, hibiscus, bougainvillea and few others with great results. Early this season I did the same on a small lemon plant. I am quite pleased with the results. It has all new leaves, two quite good sized lemons and it looks stronger and healthier than it used to be. Compared to that another plant (same lemon and same beginning size) went through a stasis, grew some and dropped some, produced flowers but never set fruit. It is not conclusive experiment but interesting nevertheless. Vlad you said about Al: In the past when I asked for scientific references for some of the things that you have said you avoided providing them and instead told me that I should trust you because of your many years of experience. I think you have beaten that dead horse many times, inserting that pet peeve of yours in many threads. It is time to move on. But you managed to embed an accusation that I have never seen Al do. You are referring to this comment: https://www.houzz.com/discussions/miracle-gro-garden-soil-experiment-dsvw-vd~5348646 The reply by Al, in my opinion, was spot on and had no reference to years of experience that you seem to accuse him of. A scientist does what Sherlock Holmes explained best: "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth" Next you said: Tell me how my criticisms of Al are not accurate. Just because you cannot get through 300 words without losing the plot is really not a criticism of Al. I wonder how you will get through 10000 words in the scientific reference you are seeking. Out of your five posts in this thread four of them are dedicated to trying to get even with Al. Please try to move on.

As far as "best mix", IME, there is no such thing. Particularly with the the hybrid phals, it typically comes down to what your particular watering practices and conditions are. I have used mixes containing various combinations of: coconut husk chunks or med-large grade bark, large/med grade horticultural charcoal, hydroton/primagra/the little puffed clay balls, medium-large grade perlite, corks, lava rock/pumice, and sphag -- depending upon what I have on hand at the time. I have on several occasions grown them in straight sphag without any issue. I have also grown them mounted on cork with no media at all. I've known folks who grow them in semi-hydro. They really are not fussy plants ... you just have to determine what will work best for you in your conditions. The biggest thing is to remember that the media should be coarse/airy or the roots are likely to suffocate. When I use straight sphag, I do not pack the sphag tightly ... but then I don't pack any media I use tightly though I know many growers who do. I recall one phal in particular that had many folks at my old os rather flabbergasted. Friends of mine had purchased one of those mass produced generic phals at Costco. It was in a 8-10" pot of tightly packed sphag. Not being plant people, I gave them some advice about watering which was to water sparingly as it was fall and the plant was in a shady window and the fact that a solid mass of sphag like that would not dry out quickly. After the blooms died, they gave the plant to me. When I removed the plant from the pot, the sphag came with it in a perfect pot-shaped mass. The roots running along the outside of the sphag were in good shape, surprisingly. So I decided to experiment since a generic white phal was, IMO, expendable. Rather than soaking and removing the moss, I left it as it was -- didn't even put it back in the pot. Rather I sat the pot-shaped mass of sphag on a large shallow saucer and watered it off and on with the goal of keeping the moss barely damp on the outside. Sometimes I would forget an the moss got very dry though not parched. So I'd just give a little more water to rehydrate the moss that next water. Plant did great. The following year I donated it to the society for their summer picnic auction ... still in that pot-shaped mass of sphag. "How do you soak them without getting the grown of them wet? Or do you early in the morning and not worry about it. I have fans blowing and the heat from the lights would evaporate any water that gets on the leaves in my warm room within an hour or two. Would you still be concerned?" I don't worry about getting them wet though when soaking my potted ones (which is what I, personally, do) I do pour the water directly on the media. but if some water splashes on the leaves I don't fret. In your conditions, with the leaves and crown drying off that quickly, you shouldn't have to worry. Just make sure the water isn't really cold.