Question
I bought a Cymbidium in bloom in Dec and its clear its not doing very well (no wonder as I dont know much about them and  from reading several things here I now know I havent done right things. The flowers started to fall off quite suddenly and I thought it would be a good idea to repot the plant around January. After repotting it ( in a much bigger pot , I know now that is wrong) it has grown 2 new spikes but the main bulbs leaves are turning yellow and it seems like the stem is rotting as it looks wrinkled and some litte flies are flying around it all the time. The new spikes however look healthy.......Any advice? I live in Miami dade.

Answer
Hello Elisabeth,

The leaves falling off may be due to your having repotted it into a larger pot.  Too large a pot for the size of the plant and the root system can lead to root rot due to the potting mix remaining wet for too long.  Those little flies flying around could be fungus gnats which are attracted to decaying mix (by the way, this sort of tells me that when you repotted it you took it out of the old pot, stuck it in the new larger pot and may have added potting mix to fill the gap).  

My recommendation is to stop watering for now and wait until the potting mix becomes almost dry before watering again.  Once the blooms are all gone, you can put it back into the smaller pot with fresh orchid potting mix.  Most orchids prefer to become rootbound before being repotted and when you repot it, do so only into the next size larger pot.  

I hope the cymbidium you have is warmth tolerant so it will reliably bloom for you year after year.  

Hope this helped.

Jim Kawasaki
San Jose, Ca.