Kathy, I always appreciate and enjoy a good sense of humor...

Mike, welcome and I'm glad you're an "ex-lurker", like myself:)

Jim - appreciate your apology to the lurkers...

Welcome Mike!

I have ben growing Phals, for three years, and these are the older ones.I have 7 orchids, Total, along with other interest.( way too many irons in the fire.)
This is the main problem, I have with my orchids.Mike

Looks like your Kitty cats are in charge of your Orchids!? They sure seem to watch over them!

Good looking plants!

Are they guarding them , or eating them, or considering them for a new litter box?

Love the pics, Mike. Those are happy phals!!

"Are they guarding them , or eating them, or considering them for a new litter box?"

LOL... Shhh, Carol, don't give the kitty cats any ideas...

Mike, good growing... and I think you're right, it looks like they "own" the phals and not you:)

Great looking phals Mike! Are those spikes I see?

To all lurkers, past , present and future...
I knew virtually nothing a year ago, not only about growing these wonderful
plants but also taking photographs of them. I think even the experts here
would agree that there is always so much more to learn. If you go back to the
beginning of the threads you'll see all the questions we've all asked, you are
not alone in your desire to be a better orchid grower. This is the place to be!

Bill

So true!!

I do have a question.Why are my bloom spikes not longer, and only have 5, or less flowers? The flowers will lasat around three mounths, on average, but I have noticed that the spike is always inferrior to others, that I have seen.
The cats are as caring as possible, until Simon sees a flying object outside, and tries to pounce. Simon is the simeese, and is a juvie, and Tigger is an old gentleman, who was a feral, and was shot, reason for missing RF leg.He has lived, in harmony with us, but we have never been able to touch him.Tigger loves the orchid window, and the plants.Mike

Mike,
about the spikes - there could be a number of factors involved:
The type of Phal - some simply don't produce a stem loaded with blooms,
your cultural conditions - temperature, amount of light, amount and type of fertilizer.

From what I can see in your picture, the plants look healthy.

I used to not bother fertilizing and it only ever made 3 or 4 flowers....

Oh where did my post go? I wrote the same info as Ursula but I said I'd rather have a healthy plant with few blooms than a sick plant with many! Roots are more important than blooms (life and death). I don't compare my bloom count with anyone with a greenhouse. There's a huge difference between windowsill grown and greenhouse grown. The plants you are seeing in stores are grown like this (which you can never reproduce): http://cubits.org/orchids/thre...
That should give you perspective!!

I feel so much better about the health of my orchids, and do feel that I am slack on fertilizing.I'm such a (Nature nut), that fall short in appling fert. to most every thing.I should know that orchids need the supliment, and don't "thrive on compost"
Is once a week feeding too much? I have the mix, that is to be deluted , and added after rinsing. I try to rinse once a week, when remembering.
I have put them in the shade house in summer. Mike

I fertilize every 3 weeks.

I've sort of done an un-official study with orchids, as to fertilize or not. In a few cases where I thought the plant would die, I would attach them to a tree and forget about them. Making my rounds I noticed that the plant not only survived but began spiking, this after neglect..no water, let alone furtilizer. So this leads me to believe that fertilizer is for plants that receive filtered water. Since most of my control plants where planted directly to trees, I cannot blame the medium, although stony mediums and tap water probably would need extra supplements, time release etc...

Orchids get fertilized on trees from organic debris. They also get rained on so watering may not be necessary. All true for Florida and CA, but most of our members could never grow outside year round (with windchill of -20 F here, no way). You really need to fertilize if a plant is not growing outside on trees. It has nothing to do with filtering although you need to use different fertilizers inside and in greenhouses for filtered vs. tap water.