I have four mini Phals from early this year. Three of them are producing new thick leaves. One wasn’t so I removed all the original potting medium to look at the roots. They were rotting.

I cleaned off the roots and repotted in a new mix. Pretty soon, there were two new root nubs and a small leaf peeking out. The original leaves were getting wrinkled and yellowing one at a time. Then, the two new roots stopped growing. Then, a new nub appeared at the base. I was hoping it would be a basal keiki but now that it’s 4-cm long, it looks like it’s a flower spike. The new small leaf that I mentioned before is getting wrinkled and not getting bigger but the flower spike looks very healthy.

There are several new nubs (probably roots) at the base just starting to pop out.

My question, should I cut off the flower spike so more of the Phal’s resources go into producing leaves? Or should I just leave it alone?

I read somewhere that a flower spike when my Phal is in the condition it’s in is a “stress bloom”. Is that going to be helpful to the Phal or is it going to stress it more?