I have a palaenopsis orchid. I was out of town for a few days and when I got back one of the leaves had turned yellow and came off, the other three leaves look fine though. It had two stalks with flowers and on one the flowers all shriveled and fell off and it is yellow from about halfway up to the top. The other stalk is doing fine though, and still has 4 blooms (some fell off). I was wondering what I needed to do about the yellow stalk and also what causes the blooms to shrivel like that?
what ever you do, do not cut off any yellowing pieces until they have dried and shriveled, if you were to cut it off now, there is a good chance it will die from an fungus or bacterial infection from the wound you just gave it so just wait.
Really? This is a confusing topic for me... almost everything else I've read advises to cut the yellow portions of the stem off, just up to the first 'good' node. I had a similar question regarding what to do about this situation, and did a ton of searches - all advice said to cut the yellowing stems. I did just this - three areas a few days ago - it seemed the longer I waited, the worse it was getting. Since I've cut them back the shriveling seems to have stopped... I'm cautious but hopeful.
