Lovely Cymbidium!

I looked up some information online regarding Cymbidiums and for some reason a whole lot was mentioned about mealybugs and spider mites. Mealybugs are irritating little whitish bugs, males eventually growing wings and only living to fertilize eggs laid by the female; ants assist in protecting them by keeping away their predators. Spider mites tend to live on the undersides of leaves, spinning silky webs there, and puncture the leaves to eat the plant cells.

I noticed on my initial once-over that my cym had some strange little webs attached to it. I hadn't seen any spiders, so I connected the dots after having read about spider mites. I took a little flashlight and searched quite closely for any pests, finding only more webs and small round gray things... I think they may have been the mealybugs. I found some clumps of winged insects attached to some of the webs. Thankfully they were dead, but I could see the wings, so it wasn't inspiring. I cleaned off all the leaves and the spike so that I would be able to tell if anything was currently spinning any webs, causing any weird black peel-off splotches, etc. While going through this I dug around a bit in the media. Much to my horror I discovered a huge underground web. I didn't hang out long enough to find any pests, but that's all I needed to inspire me to ask some of my online communities for help.

While digging around I took notice of a few webs and more small gray circle bug/things in between the bulbs.

The roots are absurd and pathetic. The cym is in bloom but I'm considering re-potting it.

Unfortunately my cat's interest in my orchid is the least of my worries.

My birthday orchid!

So, I just had my birthday, that means the land of Vancouver is a new and exciting one. I got home on the 30th after spending a week at my dad's place and was surprised when my mom told me she had bought me an orchid! Of course she was threatening it when she let me know a local store had a huge selection of them, but were sold out when she went back to buy one. And she knows I'm completely obsessed with them after finding I was able to re-bloom my Harlequin.

I'm currently working at getting this orchid identified. It said it was a Cymbidium, but I'm more interested in what kind of Cym it is. So far, Featherhill Fanfare and Dryad seem like good candidates, but I'm always unsure. Alas.
















In any case, it's gorgeous and matches my phal, which is funny; I wasn't sure if she did it on purpose or if it was just an accident, so I asked her - turns out it was completely coincidental. She chose it because she liked it, looks like we have the same taste!

I was advised on one of the forums I'm a member of to put some cinnamon on the spike of my cut phal as a fungicide. I've not really had any major issues with this phal like insects or black rot or anything like that, but I thought I may as well, as a precautionary measure.

I've not done anything differently with it except for the cinnamon, and since dabbing some on the cut, my phal has developed these strange little bumps on it's spike. It has me quite worried.