Orchid Care Tips When You Have a Keiki
This is an Orchid Keiki.
Although Orchid Keikis may look exciting because they are a plant growing on top of your original plant, they really aren’t a good thing. The reason they develop is that the plant is under stress and it is trying to propagate itself in case the original plant you bought dies. Normally this plant above grows in a rainforest, and here it is hoping if it is now in a rainforest it can grab a nearby tree branch, cling on, and start a new plant of the same variety.
This plant you see the keiki above on is the blooming stem of a Phalaenopsis which was cut above a node. Nodes are the three notches that look like bamboo on the flower stem above. What happened when this plant finished blooming is that instead of sending a flower spike out the side of the node as Phalaenopsis plants do when they have good genes and enough core plant energy, this one spent that energy in distress mode.
If this were my plant, instead of worrying about growing this keiki in a pot and waiting 4-7 years for it to get to blooming size, I would cut this flower spike 1 inch from the base of the plant and take careful care of the plant.
One long root can be seen following down the stem of this plant, and it is looking for nutrients, water, and most importantly, humidity.
This particular plant was stressed for a number of reasons:
- was watered too much sometimes, and other times forgotten and not watered for weeks
- often too much or too little sun
- most important: this plant sits on a humidy tray which is often empty so does not give this Orchid what it needs with humidity like where it came from. The humidity tray needs to be filled when all of the water has evaporated.
Any questions or comments? Post Below and I’ll answer in the comments field of this Blog entry.
July 26th, 2006 at 11:46 am
Please help. I recently got an orchid and I fear I may have already killed it. I think I watered it too much. The root of the leaves got very mushy and all the leaves fell out as well as the majority of the flowers. I stopped watering it about a week ago and I would have thought that all the heat and lack of water would have dried the plant out, but the stems still seem exceedingly moist and are a darker green color. There is also some white fuzz at the root of the plants that looks like the mold that grows on flower stems after they have been left in a vase too long. Is there anyway I can bring my plant back to life??
July 26th, 2006 at 7:53 pm
The plant may ba able to be saved - not sure yet though. You need to make sure the core of the plant isn’t rotten or dead. If this center part of the plant, just above the bark level, is intact, that is where most of the energy is stored that can grow new leaves and roots. Make sure no water sits in the joints between the leaves and make sure air flow is good for this plant while you wait to see how it does.
September 13th, 2006 at 5:20 pm
Hi, I am hoping you can help me with my mother’s first orchid. Recently she had some surgery done and as a “get well” treat my sister and I purchased an orchid for her at the Missouri Botanical Gardens. We were concerned about picking the orchid as a gift as we’d heard they are hard to care for, but the woman at the gift shop assured us all it needed was lots of light and keeping the soil moist without overwatering. We thought it was a beautufl flower so we went for it… Now a week and a half later all of the flowers have fallen off of the stem and we have realized we have no idea how to care for this plant. I hope it can be saved and that it will bloom again.
I looked over your website hoping to find notes on caring for this flower but I’m not even sure what kind of orchid we have so I don’t know what steps to take… more light, less light… more water…? The plant had three star-shaped blooms that were a rich wine color. The little tag in the dirt says “Hilltop Delight x Brother Purple Brother” but I have no idea if that’s relevant or not. I took a couple of pictures, maybe that will help to ID it:
http://members.aol.com/spinner1975/Orchid1.jpg
http://members.aol.com/spinnter1975/Orchid2.jpg
Anyway, the leaves at the base seem very healthy but now that all of three flowers have fallen off, we don’t know what to do. Will the plant bloom again? My mother has had it sitting on her kitchen table in front of a window, so it seems like it would be getting light. She has watered it once and put a paper towel beneath the pot to absorb the excess water as she did this. We don’t have a humidity tray, “orchid food,” etc. Like I said, the girl at the gift shop made it out to be so simple. Can you please help? Will the plant bloom again, or is this a lost cause already? What kind of care should we be giving our Orchid?
September 13th, 2006 at 5:32 pm
Hi, I have no idea if my recent “comment” went through and I don’t even know where the proper place to post on this site is, but I am hoping to get help with an orchid we purchased for my mother. The woman at the gift shop told us the orchid just needed a lot of light and regular watering, but after a week and a half all of the flowers have fallen off. When we purchased the orchid, it had three star-shaped flowers in a rich wine color. Here are a couple of photos:
http://members.aol.com/spinner1975/Orchid1.jpg
http://members.aol.com/spinner1975/Orchid2.jpg
The leaves, as you can see, look quite healthy. The flowers just fell off after a week. We have the orchid sitting on a kitchen table in front of a window, so it’s getting light. We have watered it once, trying to keep the soil moist without overwatering. Any suggestions? We don’t know what we are doing and would like to see the orchid develop some new blooms, but for all we know we are caring for this plant all wrong. It’d our first orchid. Thanks!
September 30th, 2006 at 9:38 pm
This is a Phalaenopsis Orchid. Here is care information:
http://www.imagine123.com/orchidtips/care/phalaenopsis.html
Best place to post further questions:
http://orchidcare.imagine123.com/discussion-forum/
Thanks for writing and hope this helps!