Vandaceous mystery orchid

We were told this vanda is orange. We assume it is an ascocentrum because it is small. It came to us in a 6" wooden basket with the roots wrapped around in the basket and a few roots attached to the basket. When we first got it we sprayed it every day, but the leaves just started to shrivel and look really sad. It also got a pretty bad sunburn when it had to go to a babysitter for a short trip we made. We started spraying it twice a day to see if the shrivelling was just a moisture problem. The leaves plumped back up. We decided to put a few bigger chunks of bark, a couple cut up wine corks, and a tiny bit of moss in the basket with the roots to keep the humidity up. The medium still dries out in a couple of hours so it hasn't caused any rot problems. Now we only have to spray it once a day and the leaves haven't been shrivelling. It has put on a couple of new leaves since we got it which is always exciting. I have been spraying it daily with the Dyna Gro- Grow fertilizer that we use on all our plants when we water. Vandas are supposed to be heavy feeders, the concentration of this fertilizer type is only 7-9-5, and because they are not in medium they need more heavy feeding anyways. We are just hoping for more growth and hopefully flowers soon!

BLC "Steve Stevenson Ponkan" x BLC Goldenzelle "Lemon Chiffon"

We often refer to this one as lemon chiffon. It came from someone at Steven's work. It was potted in a plastic pot with pebbles, but the pot was looking ratty and it kept tipping over, so we repotted it shortly after getting it. We potted it into a 6" wooden basket with standard bark mix. It made a couple of nice new growths last year and lots of new roots (of course many of which are outside the basket). We've realized that the cattleyas seem to like putting a lot of roots outside the basket, which doesn't seem to both them any, but it bothers us because we worry the roots will dehydrate and die and it also makes repotting a giant pain. It has been doing well in it's new home though. It also got scale cooties when we had the outbreak and sulked a little bit. We haven't ever seen it flower; it might not be big enough yet it only has 4 pseudobulbs with leaves and 2 old backbulbs. It really didn't grow at all during the winter, but it is back in the saddle again this spring. So far so good. I also mist its outside the basket roots with fertilizer water on lots of days when I spray my vandas. I water it when the medium dries out all the way and fertilize weekly.

BLC "Sweet Treat" (BLC "Pokai Tangerine" x Cattleya "Chocolate Drop")

We got this orchid that we normally call tangerine from someone at Steven's work. It was growing in a 4" wooden basket with just a tiny bit of medium in there and pretty much all of it's roots were outside the basket. We eventually decided to repot it into something that would fit its roots. We soaked the whole plant, basket and all, for a while, maybe even overnight, to loosen the roots. We scraped off all the roots and pulled it out of the basket (It was pretty thoroughly manhandled). We planted it then in a 6" wooden basket with standard bark mix. It seemed to respond just fine to the repotting, making roots and all. It of course started making all of its new roots outside the basket!! It must just have a thing for that, which doesn't seem to bother the plant any, but we find annoying. We water it only when it dries out and fertilize it weekly. It hasn't really been growing the way our other plants have though, and we aren't really sure why. We thought it might be because most of the roots are outside the medium so they are getting less fertilizer. I started spraying the roots outside the basket with fertilizer water most days when I spray my vandas. It has a small new growth nub, but it is moving at the pace of a turtle- way slower than all the other plants it seems like. I guess we will just keep going with the fertilizer spray and see what happens. I really want it to grow and flower so we can see what it looks like!

Cattleya with yellow flower and maroon throat

We also got this yellow cattleya from someone at Steven's work. It was growing in a 6" wooden basket in bark mix when we got it. We treated it just like any cattleya in higher light and letting it dry out between waterings. It actually flowered for us last summer which was a fun surprise- now we know what it looks like! It also got scale pretty badly when we had the outbreak, and is one of the plants that sulked for a while. It also made several new growths in August that all ended up being floppy and limp looking. I read that this can happen from it being too hot, but we aren't really sure what was wrong with it. We repotted it into an 8" wooden basket with standard bark mix, and it seemed to sulk. I think it was just a bad time to repot at the end of the growing season. It also got too much sun over the winter and some of the older leaves turned yellow, so we cut them off. I think we also way over potted the poor thing because it's the type of cattleya with the skinnier roots rather than the giant fat roots. The mix is pretty large chunks though so it seems to be drying out ok. I don't think we will repot it again until it outgrows this new basket because I am worried it will just sulk again and it seems to be doing ok now. This spring it started making a few new growths which we are really excited about since it seemed like it wasn't doing that well. I think it was just a combination of getting bugs and getting repotted at the wrong time of year. I feel good that it will return to its former glory!

Dendrobium aggregatum

We bought the Dendrobium aggregatum at the Redland Orchid Festival last year. It was and still is potted in a 4" plastic basket with a wad of moss right under the plant and the rest of the basket is bark. We were told it wants high light, similar to a cattleya at least. The lady also said it wants tons of water and tons of fertilizer in the growing season then don't water it AT ALL from at least Thanksgiving until New Years. Wait until it starts showing signs of new growth/flowering spike then you can start watering and fertilizing like crazy again. We followed the instructions watering and fertilizing like crazy over the summer. At Thanksgiving we quit watering it all together and probably didn't water it at all for at least 2 months. It started to look really shrivelled and dry, so we looked it up and found that it's ok to water a tiny bit occassionally during the rest just to keep the pseudobulbs from totally shrivelling. We would do a very brief maybe 5 second splashing with the sink sprayer occassionally, maybe every 2 weeks as it got further and further along into the rest period. When February rolled around we started wondering when it would start doing something. We saw flowering aggregatums at shows in February and asked one of the vendors if there was a point at which we should just start watering it to force it to come out of rest. She said if it's not doing anything by March you can start watering it. It started putting on a flowering spike shortly after that, so there was no need to force it. We just went back to the tons of water and fertilizer, and it has been putting on new growths rapidly. We are really glad we were able to do this right because it was our first try at an orchid that needs a rest. It was also the plant's first year of flowering so it only had one spike, but it was really beautiful. It seems to do well with its potting setup, but I suspect it will outgrow its basket by the end of this growing season and will be ready for a repot. I think we will probably use the same method, since it seems to be working really well. These orchids that need to rest are actually really easy, because for a few months out of the year you don't have to do anything with them!

Encyclia "Cindy"

Encyclia Cindy we got from someone at Steven's work in a 4" clay orchid po,t potted in bark with moss over the top to keep a bit more humidity. We were amazed when it started putting on a flowering spike and flowered for us right away! It seemed so small (just a few pseudobulbs) to flower, but I guess not! It also got cooties in the wave of scale outbreak that we had. Many of the plants that got scale sulked for a while. One of the pseudobulbs had the whole leaf part break off. We ended up repotting it back into it's same pot with just bark mix a few months after we got it. It came back slowly but surely putting on a lot of new roots and a new pseudobulb which is now putting on a flowering spike! Maybe it only flowers in May? We aren't sure yet about that. We had to water it a bit more often than the other orchids because it was drying out a lot faster. I put a bit of moss at the top where there were new roots coming out to keep them moist, and I would mist it every other day or so if it was hot and dry. We have found that it's ok to put moss on top of bark to keep new roots happy until they can get further into the medium, but it is NOT ok to put bark on top of moss. "Bark over moss, major root loss" is the mnemonic device we made up. It makes the bark rot really fast and then the roots get sad.

Encyclia tampensis

Another Florida native! We received a small one in a 4" basket planted in moss from someone at Steven's work. It just did not do very well from the start. It got an outbreak of scale which got on our other plants because we had been dunking all of our plants in the same bucket of water to water them. THIS IS A BAD IDEA! They will get cooties! We didn't realize until we had an outbreak. We also lost a couple of pseudobulbs to some kind of rot as well as the scale problem. The poor plant only ended up with a couple of pseudobulbs in a rehab chamber for months. The rehab chamber was a tiny 2" plastic pot with extra slits cut in it for ventilation growing in moss. The plant eventually made a few roots this spring. We also bought a new small Encyclia tampensis a couple days ago at the Redland Orchid Festival that we potted into a 4" clay orchid pot potted in bark alongside the rehab pieces. We are going to water it when it dries out and fertilize with every watering while in active growth. See the post on Cooties for more about dealing with bugs.

Oncidium Sharry Baby

We also received Sharry Baby from Zack at Steven's work. It was in a 5" clay orchid pot with standard bark mix, and we kept it in there. It seems to be very happy because it just keeps growing and flowering like crazy. We water it normally once a week or so when it dries out all the way with our standard Dyna Gro- Grow weekly and with Dyna Gro- Bloom when it is in spike. Every time it makes a new pseudobulb, before the bulb even seems to be fully mature, it is putting on a flowering spike. The flowers smell kind of like chocolate during the warm part of the day. I definitely recommend this plant for easy and prolific flowering. This time it even has 2 flowering spikes! After it is done flowering, we will probably repot into something larger. We grow it with the same intermediate light level with the other oncidiums- between Phals and Cattleyas. It does have the Sharry Baby virus that they all seem to have, but it doesn't seem to be hurting it much or spreading to our other plants. Once the leaves get really ugly looking from the virus we cut them off.

Prosthecea cochleata "Valley Isle" x self - The Clamshell Orchid

We like to call this the "Octoporchid" because it is so crazy looking with octopus arms on the flowers. We really like it a lot because it looks so cool. We also got this from Zack at Steven's work when he was downsizing. It has been growing in a 6" basket in sphagnum and this seems to be working out just fine for it. It flowered a lot last year all during the growing season. It put itself into a rest period over the winter, during which we didn't water it very often or fertilize at all. This spring when it started showing signs of life I started watering more and fertilizing. Currently it has a nice spike on it that has two flowers with more to come. We are excited to see it again this year! I definitely recommend this plant as a low maintenance, easy orchid that is really cool looking.

Psychopsis mendenhall

We got the psychopsis from Zack at Steven's work because he was moving and downsizing. We were really excited about it because they are really cool looking. It was planted in a 6" basket in sphagnum. We should have looked it up to see what type of growing conditions it likes in the beginning, but we didn't. We treated it like all the other orchids, watering it when it dried out (which took forever in the moss) and fertilizing it weekly. It made a couple of really nice new growths, but after a while one of them rotted off from the base. It started making new growths again this spring, and we finally got around to looking it up and realizing that it definitely did not want to be planted in moss. It wants to dry out fairly quickly between waterings. Before the new growths were mature we repotted it into the same basket but with a standard bark mix. It did not enjoy this experience. First both the new growths it was making rotted off, then the leaves started turning yellow and dying one by one. This is one of the only plants we have ever killed, and it was so disappointing. We did a lot of research and found out that the new growths are very susceptible to rot if ANY water gets down in them, so you have to be extremely careful when watering. The psychopsis in general are also known to sulk after repotting.

We decided the other day to try it again. We really like the flowers so we bought another one at the Redland Orchid Festival 2013. The grower told us to treat it like any Oncidium and not to get water in the new growths at all. So we are trying again; better prepared this time, and crossing our fingers!

Sacoila lanceolata - Scarlet Ladies Tresses

Sacoila lanceolata is one of our most interesting orchids because it is not very commonly part of orchid collections and it's a FL native. We rescued it from a construction site. They have really cool roots like fingers. Since they are native to Florida they like the typical Florida rainy and dry season watering schedule. They should get only minimal water from November until May- just enough to keep it from being totally dry. This is the sort of thing you can probably ignore a lot during the winter and water it when you think of it. If you don't live in Florida though, during the summer it will want tons of water because it rains here everyday from May/June until mid October. It flowers in March/April when there are no leaves on the plant. It just starts sending up a spike. After the flowering spike dies off it will start putting on new leaves. The leaves will fall off every year (after looking junky and yellow for a while) in the fall/winter. We grow it in sand (there's no topsoil really in FL) with a little potting soil mixed in. We put Osmocote on it occassionally. It pretty much wants full sun or as much as you can give it. It can withstand freezing temperatures because it does get that cold sometimes in FL, but it can't handle it as well in a pot so it needs some protection from cold weather if it is going to be below freezing for an extended period of time. Obviously it will need to be indoors if growing up north.  This was a complete experiment because we had never grown one of these or even really heard of anyone growing them before, so we just replicated natural FL conditions as best we could in a 3 gallon pot. The roots don't seem to really expand in a major way super quickly so it doesn't seem like it will need to be repotted often. It's really more like a potted plant than a typical orchid in terms of growing because it is terrestrial.

Light Levels

Something to keep in mind when looking for information about your plants online is where the person is actually growing the plants. So much of what we read about Catlteyas and other types is that they are probably not getting enough sun. However, that turned out not to be true for us. Ours were turning yellow from too much sun! They weren't getting sun burn spots, but they were getting sunscreen pigment from the sun, so it was confusing. We also have to move all of our orchids around on the porch seasonally since the angle of the sun changes and different parts of the porch get more or less light. Our Cattleyas get a few hours of direct morning sun and a few more hours of indirect light. The Oncidiums get a couple of hours of direct morning sun and several hours of indirect light. The Phals get very little direct sun and lots of indirect light. Our 2 leaved cattleyas seem to prefer a bit less light than the single leaved cattleyas.

EPIC "Charlie Brown" (LC. Rojo x Epi Atro purpureum)

We got Charlie Brown from a local guy who specializes in Bulbophyllums, but grows lots of other things too. He has a sale at his house once per year. When we got it, it was filling a plastic 4in pot. The new roots on the new growth were growing over the edge of the pot and they were all dying after a couple weeks from dehydration and getting touched every time we picked up the plant. We decided it would be better off repotted into something bigger where the roots could grow in medium. We put it in a 6in basket, and it loved it. It put on multiple new growths. It was doing really well until we over sunned it. We didn't catch on to the clue when the pseudobulbs turned really dark purple red (a plants natural sunscreen). Several leaves turned yellow and fell off. It took us way too long to figure out what was wrong with it. We thought it had a fungus or something. Charlie Brown seems to prefer lower light, more similar to an Oncidium than a Cattleya. We moved it back out of the sun a bit and it quit turning yellow. It didn't flower for us this year since we stressed it out so much, but we are hopeful for next year. It is putting on new growth again, so I feel good about it's recovery. I water it only once it has dried out and fertilize every time I water while it is in active growth.

Cattleya percivaliana

We got this as a bare root cutting from Fred at Steven's work. We planted it in a series of successively larger small plastic pots in a standard bark mix. It kept growing it's roots out of the medium, and the roots tend to die when our plants do that, so we kept potting it to get the roots in medium. We now have it in an odd sized 5-6in wood basket, and it is doing really well. It finally has lots of roots and it has been putting on new growths. It's really small so it will be a couple of years before we see a flower, only 4 leaves. We water it when it dries out and use Dyna Gro- Grow every time I water. It takes a good amount of sun with our other cattleyas. This plant will be a lesson in patience!

The Fred Orchids: Oncidium "Gold Medal" and Oncidium "Gower Ramsey"

Another orchid friend at Steven's work Fred, specializes in Oncidiums. I think he must have nearly every type. He also gives away back bulbs that he has propogated to everyone, so nearly everyone at Steven's work has a Fred orchid. When we first got these from Fred, we nearly killed both of them from over watering. They were planted in lava rocks and it seemed like they would dry out so fast in that medium, so we sprayed them every day. Their roots of course all rotted and the plants nearly died. We put both of them in rehab. We cut off the totally dead parts and potted them into bark mixes in small plastic baskets. Slowly but surely they made new growths and therefore new roots and came back to life. After they were looking good again (maybe 6 months to a year), we potted them each into their own 6in wooden baskets with a standard bark mix. They seemed to respond well to the repotting, because they have made a ton of new roots (of course all out of the basket!). To our surprise, Gower Ramsey flowered this year, and man did it make an impressive display! We thought it would still be too small to flower since it only has 3 pseudobulbs. Gold Medal has not flowered for us post rehab. The Oncidiums, like cattleyas, like to dry out before getting watered again. I use my typical fertilizing regime for them, Dyna Gro- Grow every time I water. I think not over watering or over sunning these is the most critical factor.

This is Oncidium "Gower Ramsey"

Spathoglottis "Ground Orchid"

The spathoglottis also came from Zack at Steven's work. It has grown quickly also. I just realized yesterday that I think it might need to be repotted again soon because the pot looks like it's about to burst. We have it in a 1 gallon plastic pot in potting soil. For the first 6 months or so that we had it, it was growing new pseudobulbs and leaves well, but it wasn't showing any signs of flowering. After looking it up online I found out that it is a heavy feeder. I added some nutricote and a little bit of Osmocote to it and after a couple of months it started flowering! It's the pink kind. It has been consistently flowering since then. We have been keeping it outside instead of on the porch because it had mealy bugs and something outside seems to keep them under better control. The older leaves started turning yellow and looking ugly. I'm still not sure if that's because it's getting too much light, or some other problem. That was the reason so many of our other orchids were turning yellow and dropping leaves, so I've moved it onto the porch (away from the others) to see how it does. I water it when it gets dry. It was living outside so it stayed wetter if it was raining a lot. It doesn't seem to be too picky.

Bulbophyllum makoyanum

Once we moved to Florida in August 2011, our orchid collection started growing exponentially, mostly from very appreciated gifts. This plant came from Zack who works where Steven works. He propogates tons of orchids and sells them on ebay, and he periodically does a purge and gives things away to the benefit of his co-workers!

This is quite possibly the worlds easiest orchid to grow. We got it in a pot in moss, but we soom potted it up into an 8in basket with moss. We eventually realized that it was never going to have roots much deeper than an inch so we took apart the basket and reassembled 2 baskets at half the height (the cattleya cernua is in the other half). We filled the little traylike basket with moss and plunked it back in. We water as the moss gets almost all the way dried out. Bulbophyllums are mostly "evenly moist" plants that we grow in sphagnum. We keep it in bright indirect light with the Phaels. It grows like crazy and makes usually 2 spikes out of every new pseudobulb. The flowers are really interesting looking, which is one reason why we really like Bulbophyllums. They're cool because they're weird. Less cool when the flowers smell bad, but makoyanum doesn't smell like anything so no worries! I highly recommend these if you want something really easy and low maintenance, but also prolific. I use the typical fertilizing regime (see Fertilizing post).

 

 

A couple of minor strange things happened to it. It put on new growth in August when it was really hot (along with 1 or 2 other plants) and that growth was always limp looking. When I looked it up limp growths can supposedly be from it being too hot, and I think that's what happened here since the growth seems fine otherwise. Also, recently the plant made a growth in the wrong direction and it ended up stuck at the bottom of the basket. I noticed a weird greenish blob when I was looking at the bottom of the basket one day and I dug it out, and it was a new pseudobulb! It's all scrunched up, but after I dug it out it has greened up like normal, and will hopefully flower!

 

The Gus Orchid. (Laelia Amoena coerulea x Laelia Nina Bonita "Barbara")

We got this orchid from a friend of Steven's Gus, and it didn't have a label so we don't know what it is. We know it's the 2 leaf type of cattleya and it flowers off of a long stem laelia style rather than out of the sheath in typical cattleya style. It's pale purple and white in flower, and it grows like crazy! It was in a 4in plastic pot when we got it, but we potted it into a 6in basket shortly after that. It was only in the basket for about a year before it was totally overflowing, and needed repotting. We had always fertilized with Grow regularly, but hadn't had much experience using the Bloom booster and weren't really sure when to use it. The plant put out several sheaths that looked like they were going to be flowers and we got super excited, but then nothing happened. I eventually decided that it was because it needed Bloom boosting, so next time it put on a sheath I boosted like crazy. By boosting like crazy I mean I use only Bloom fertilizer and pour several scoops of it over the plant once a week or so when I water. That finally got it to flower. That was possibly one of our most exciting accomplishments to date. We waited so long for it, and it was really lovely.

After it was finished flowering we potted it up since it was busting out of it's previous home. We put it in a 10in octagon basket. We cut off all the old pseudobulbs that had no roots and are propogating them separately to give to friends. We cut the overall plant in 3 and potted the parts all together. True to form it is going nuts growing new growths and roots. We were worried the basket would be way too big and there would be too much medium and it wouldn't dry out fast enough, but not anymore. It has put on a ton of new roots (of course out of the basket already). We use just a basic fir bark mix. When we use baskets we line them with a thin layer of coconut husk similar to what they use in hanging baskets only very thin, just enough to keep the bark in. We water it only once it dries out like all the other cattleyas. I put a bit of sphagnum around the new growths and new roots so they didn't dry out too fast and shrivel and die. I mist that maybe once between waterings to keep the humidity up a bit.

Update!: We found out what this plant actually is from Gus. It's a Laelia Amoena coerulea x Laelia Nina Bonita "Barbara". Gus brought over the one he still had of these, because he hasn't been able to do anything with it. So now there are two. Probably we will send it back once it gets flowering, as a thank you.

Epidendrums

Epis are supposed to be easy, but we have had more trouble with these than anything else. We've had 4 and we've nearly killed all of them at least once. We got them from Cynthia (the Orchid Goddess lady we got the Phrag from) as bare root cuttings. First we tried to get them to grow roots in a baggie with damp paper towel. Then we potted them into little pots with bark, but they were so small they kept falling over and their medium kept falling out. One of them got scale and was in quarantine for a while. We knew that they liked a bit more organic matter and that some of them can be planted in the ground, so we sprinkled a bit of potting soil on top of the bark and it sifted in. They started to do well for a while and the coral colored one got really big and flowered. Then it started to look like the leaves were shriveling and turning yellow. We unpotted it and sure enough the roots had mostly all rotted because there was too much dirt in the pot and it was packed in too densely. We potted it back into a clay pot with bark only medium and it grew really well again, only to either get too much sun or a disease, because all the leaves turned yellow and fell off. Now there are just the little sprouts that  had started and rooted. The red epi was finally doing really well growing and looking good, and then when it was sending up a flower spike something ate it off! We have no idea what, but that was really upsetting- another year to wait. The purple epi we got from another friend Fred we gave away to my friend Louise because we are moving in a month or so and need to cut down.

Conclusion: don't treat them any different than an Oncidium or Cattleya and get over confident that they are forgiving. I would recommend a clay pot or plastic pot with holes in it and bark. If you feel the need to mix in any dirt make it a tiny bit and then maybe have some lava rocks in your mix. I fertilize these same as everything else with Dyna Gro- Grow every week when in active growth and with Dyna Gro- Bloom when it starts putting on a spike. They seem to like more Oncidium light levels.