Question
Hello! I am a new owner of a gorgeous phal, but have experienced a bad week with my plant. I started out with 7 nice healthy white and purple polka dot flowers and now they have turned a dark purple and fell off. I only have two left. The main stem is a dark brown and the bottom leaves are turning a little yellow, but there are still a lot of green ones. I water it every ten days and just fed it some food. What can I do? or is this normal?

Answer
You can cut the old flower spike off at the base near where it joins the leaves.  It will not reflower from this flower spike. The yellow leaves at the base of the plant will be lost but it is good that you still have many green leaves.

The usual procedure when a phal is done blooming is to repot it in fresh orchid potting mix.  After you obtain a bag of fresh orchid potting mix from your garden center, soak the amount you think you will use in water while you unpot your plant.  Wash all old poting mix from the roots of your plant and remove any mushy roots which have rotted and no longer support the growth of the plant.  Repot the plant in a clean plastic pot just large enough to accommodate the root mass of the plant and add the damp fresh potting mix so all of the roots are in the mix and the base of the leaves are even with the top of the fresh potting mix. This will prepare the plant to put out new growth to support new flowers next year at this time.