The look of old spike stumps often bothers me, I have to say. They grow from waaaay deep in there in-between the leaves, and cutting one inevitably leaves an ugly dry stump sticking out like a sore thumb.

I was dividing this Miltonidium recently and cleaning up the dry dead stuff both above and bellow ground. The leaf covering this stump was dead, so that was out. Then I pulled on the stump and made this rip in the pseudobulb, and that looks like live tissue in there. The stump is gone, but now I have an increased risk of infection, so this can't be right.

So, how / where do you cut spent spikes to minimize the ugliness?