Tuesday, May 21, 2013

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!

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