all the grace of a drowning duck.

[LeGray]

i'm absolutely smitten with my mini dendro (courtesy of Wesley).

because of this, i'm a little crushed. i was falling off my chair, two screws had come loose from my chair, i grabbed my desk, tipped over the mini, huffed, saved the bulk of the plant (and i suppose, myself, from falling), and bent the spike. it had buds on it that seemed only a few days away from opening.

i suppose now i have to cut it, the stem is damaged to the point where it no longer stands upright. it isn't broken, but it's bent at the base.

god, i really wanted to see it bloom, really badly. it's for the good of the plant, right, that i cut it? i can't just leave it? i'm grasping at straws. i need to find a nice, brick wall to bounce my head off of for a few minutes.

it's just so... .... cute. and healthy.

and now i feel i have all the grace of a drowning duck. i'm really not this clutzy, it just seems that orchids draw this behaviour out of me, naturally.

i keep vases of flowers on my desk without fearing for my keyboard, i have lots of plants i care for (my green thumb is sometimes creepy, there are times i almost feel like i can keep anything alive with a slab of dirt and some sink water) that live around me without fearing for their leaves. but now i've crashed my orchids over, again.

i'm pretty sure i know what you'll advise, i think 90% of this post was just an oppertunity for me to scream and tear my hair out. ><

[LeGray]

*sigh*

I cut two beautiful spikes and a healthy leaf off my mini dendro. It's still cute, but damn that stung.

On that note, I have no experience with mini denrobium, I've read plenty on their full size cousins, is the care remotely simmilar? (trick question, I know).

It's called "Little Pixie", which I've had trouble refining a google search for.

[Dana]

I'm sorry for your loss eidolontree.
It's really :toofull: when something like that happens.

I wouldn't have cut the spike, I would have just let it be and see what happened. Orchids are much tougher then we think.
I'm sure all kinds of things fall on them in the wild and they sort it out them selves. It might have bloomed anyway...then again it might have abborted the spike and flowers.

A couple of months ago i broke a spike on one of my orchids..this had never happend before to me and I was crestfallen.
I never removed the spike and now it has branched and is almost as long as it's other brothers and sisters.

Did you have alot of damage on dendr?
I couldn't make that out from your post...but then again, I've just woken up so it could just be me.

Greetz,
Dana

[LeGray]

well, after further inspection, i found that it wasn't simply bent, it was snapped, and was hanging on by a flap of "skin", so i figured i should just finish it off and dust it with cinnamon. the rest of the plant is totally unharmed, i only had to remove one leaf. but the thing is so dang tiny, it only had four leaves to begin with. ><

i think it'll be fine, i'm just saddened i had to cut the spike so close to when it was about to open.

and now i've found scale on my odbrs. all these new orchids all at the same time, you know, everyone wants all the attention, right now.

i hope listerine works on scale....

[sterling]

I have been battling scale all summer.

I have been using Malathion and I hope it is finally gone since I need to bring my plants in for the winter.

Sterling