Mini Cattleyas: Cattleya lueddemanniana v. coerulea and Cattleya petite doll

These came from the Redland Orchid Festival in May 2013. We got them because we like miniatures, the pictures of their flowers were really cute, and they were a good price. They were basically bare root tucked into little plastic pots and taped into the pots so they didn't fall out. When we got them home we had to make a huge assessment about what plants we would put in what available pots because we had bought so many at the show. We decided to put these into little 4" wooden orchid baskets that we had sitting at home unused. It's hard to find something small enough for that size basket. But these miniatures will be just the thing we hope. We tucked them in with our standard bark mix. We didn't use Styrofoam for these because the baskets are so small they should dry out fast enough. One of them is doing better than the other.

Cattleya lueddmanniana got tipped over in our initial move to Chicago, and has been a bit slow to recover. It hasn't put on any new growths or roots. The existing plant doesn't seem to be declining, but it's not thriving either. Hopefully it will start putting on new growth and get going.

Cattleya petite doll on the other hand seems to be doing really well. It didn't have any moving mishaps, so it has been putting on new growths.

 

We are growing them in good light like all the cattleyas, letting them dry out completely between waterings, and fertilizing every time we water while they are in active growth with Dyna Gro- Grow.

 

I have no idea how big these need to be in order to flower. I'm assuming it will be similar to our Cattleya cernua when it's big enough to flower. If they continue to do well, especially petite doll maybe they will flower next year. Another nice thing about miniatures is that you can have lots of plants, and they still don't take up that much space! We have been really excited about trying to grow huge specimen sized miniatures (well all the plants really) but especially the miniatures. We've seen some at shows and they just look so cool huge (well, huge for a miniature).