In early January of this year (2026), I thought I watered the plant too much, and instead of putting it back inside of its terracotta cache pot, I flipped the pot upside down and set the plant, in its clear orchid pot, on top of the cache pot. I thought that it would help the pot dry out quicker, but it also had the effect of moving the plant very close to the powerful LED light that hung over top of it. I did not think much more about it, but next week on watering day I noticed that the buds on the very top were not yellowing and falling off, but actually getting bigger.

After losing hundreds of buds over a year and a half, it turned out that dumb luck more than anything else helped me solve the problem. The plant never got enough light to make the buds mature until I moved it extremely close to the light source.