Monday, August 5, 2013

Phragmipedium kovachii x schlimii

This is possibly the most exciting purchase ever!!! Steven has been hankering after a kovachii ever since it was discovered. We never thought we would be able to afford one though. (Granted we didn't get the species). We got it from Peruflora at the Redland Orchid Festival 2013. The guy had a couple of different hybrids and a species for sale. We talked to him for a little bit about the price and how to care for them. He ended up giving it to us for only $25!!!! We thought about getting the species, but decided we should practice on a hybrid first just in case. He told us they want to be wet, but maybe not quite as wet as our Phrag bessae hybrid. It is a substantially sized plant with several new growths. We planted it in a standard bark mix that we added some coconut chips to for moisture retention. It's planted in a 6" clay orchid pot. I think it would be happy if we watered it every day, but that is awfully high maintenance so we put a small tray of water for it to sit in and water it every couple of days. We put 10-10-10 Nutricote on it like we did with our Phrag bessae. We read online that it likes more basic soils, so we are thinking of getting some crushed shells for it, but haven't done anything yet. It had some slight yellowing issues at first that was a little concerning, but it seems to have quit doing that. I think it was probably just repotting stress. Plus, when we bought it it was wrapped in a bit of sphagnum in a plastic baggie for who knows how long. It seems to be growing ok. Some of its new growths have elongated nicely and are doing well, it also has some little tiny new growths that don't seem to be growing. This happened before with our Phrag bessae. It started to grow then they got stunted for one reason or another and never kept going. Eventually the stunted growth on Phrag bessae rotted and we cut it off, but that took over a year. I wonder if the little growths on kovachii will stay stunted... I don't have much to say about how to grow this yet, because we only just got it!



No comments:

Post a Comment