# Phrag. Eumelia Arias (kovachii x schlimii)



## southernbelle (Jan 1, 2020)

First bloom. Purchased a year ago from Woodstream. I was hoping it would be more schlimii size, but looks like it’s taking more after kovachii. Flower 3.5”; leaf span 24”. May not have room to keep this one before too long.


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## mrhappyrotter (Jan 1, 2020)

A 24" leaf span isn't terribly unusual for a mature sized P. schlimii, so in a way, this does sound like a P. schlimii sized plant. Either way it's a nice plant and pretty flower, and I definitely understand making decisions based on plant size versus amount of space available.


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## abax (Jan 1, 2020)

Lovely bloom and just my taste. If you ever
need to find it a home, I'd be more than
happy to give it a home. I'll MAKE room in
my greenhouse for that beauty. Perhaps I
have a mini-Phrag to trade.


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## southernbelle (Jan 3, 2020)

I just saw the Woodstream catalogue online and they have just a few of these, if you are interested. They tend to go faster than he can keep them supplied, he says, so act fast as he has an open house coming up in about a week.


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## NYEric (Jan 6, 2020)

Yay besseae hybrids! Thanks for sharing. Where in the south are you located?


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## southernbelle (Jan 13, 2020)

NYEric said:


> Yay besseae hybrids! Thanks for sharing. Where in the south are you located?


I’m in VA now, am originally from LA.


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## Linus_Cello (Jan 13, 2020)

southernbelle said:


> I’m in VA now, am originally from LA.


Which part of VA? I'm in Fairfax County.


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## PeteM (Jan 14, 2020)

Linus_Cello said:


> Which part of VA? I'm in Fairfax County.


You moved! I've got lots of catching up to do. See you at the Forum.


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## Linus_Cello (Jan 14, 2020)

PeteM said:


> You moved! I've got lots of catching up to do. See you at the Forum.


I moved with the first kid. Now we have 2 boys. How’s your daughter?


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## southernbelle (Jan 14, 2020)

Linus_Cello said:


> Which part of VA? I'm in Fairfax County.


Spotsylvania County between Fredericksburg and Culpeper. See you at the Paph Forum.


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## Linus_Cello (Jan 14, 2020)

southernbelle said:


> Spotsylvania County between Fredericksburg and Culpeper. See you at the Paph Forum.



You're not too far from one of the speakers, Jeff Morris? Are you a member of CHAOS?


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## PeteM (Jan 14, 2020)

Linus_Cello said:


> I moved with the first kid. Now we have 2 boys. How’s your daughter?


She is doing well! Thanks. Will send you an email later.. I have some PK hybrids for the members sales table.


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## PeteM (Jan 14, 2020)

southernbelle said:


> First bloom. Purchased a year ago from Woodstream. I was hoping it would be more schlimii size, but looks like it’s taking more after kovachii. Flower 3.5”; leaf span 24”. May not have room to keep this one before too long.
> 
> View attachment 17497
> View attachment 17496
> ...


Great size and healthy plant. I noticed the grow cubes. I'm interested to learn about your growing conditions.. Day/Night Temps, Water, light, mix and pot. I plan to switch many of my phrags over to rockwool in the coming week, I've seen some amazing plants grown in this media and the PH seems to be shifted in the right direction for PK. Worth a shot even if I have to wear protective gear. Thanks for sharing!


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## southernbelle (Jan 15, 2020)

Linus_Cello said:


> You're not too far from one of the speakers, Jeff Morris? Are you a member of CHAOS?


I know Jeff but I’m not a member of CHAOS. I’m a member of VOS. Can’t figure out how to make it to both meetings. Actually, I might join for the newsletters and speaker info and at least try to make some. Jeff is a very interesting speaker and nice guy. Jeff is also the one who encouraged rockwool for phrags as they resist repotting, and in rockwool that can happen less often.


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## southernbelle (Jan 15, 2020)

PeteM said:


> Great size and healthy plant. I noticed the grow cubes. I'm interested to learn about your growing conditions.. Day/Night Temps, Water, light, mix and pot. I plan to switch many of my phrags over to rockwool in the coming week, I've seen some amazing plants grown in this media and the PH seems to be shifted in the right direction for PK. Worth a shot even if I have to wear protective gear. Thanks for sharing!


I will answer your detail questions soon, once I look at my records, but am not aware of need to wear protective gear with rockwool. ??


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## NYEric (Jan 16, 2020)

The old glass tube type used to require protective wear. The new stuff (growdan) is totally different.


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## PeteM (Jan 16, 2020)

NYEric said:


> The old glass tube type used to require protective wear. The new stuff (growdan) is totally different.


I found this Grodan safety sheet online from 2018, is there a more recent reference? Maybe I'm confusing the products. Input from others welcome. (https://hydrofarm.com/f/i/2lidqho/Grodan RW PRO and AO SDS Sheet.pdf)


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## PeteM (Jan 16, 2020)

southernbelle said:


> I will answer your detail questions soon, once I look at my records, but am not aware of need to wear protective gear with rockwool. ??


Thanks. Found your info in another thread ('I grow my phrags in 55% rockwool (small Grodan grow cubes ¼“-½ “, 35% spongerock or small Growstone and 10% charcoal in clear plastic. I run 45-55% humidity, 84 high in summer and 72 in winter. I water them once a week when the top ½-¾” inch is dry depending on size of pot. Any more frequently and mine rot. I live in Northern VA and grow indoors under LEDs.') I've been away from the website or a while. Catching up.


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## southernbelle (Jan 16, 2020)

PeteM said:


> Thanks. Found your info in another thread ('I grow my phrags in 55% rockwool (small Grodan grow cubes ¼“-½ “, 35% spongerock or small Growstone and 10% charcoal in clear plastic. I run 45-55% humidity, 84 high in summer and 72 in winter. I water them once a week when the top ½-¾” inch is dry depending on size of pot. Any more frequently and mine rot. I live in Northern VA and grow indoors under LEDs.') I've been away from the website or a while. Catching up.


I was just going to post and saw you found this. The one negative about rockwool is that I was getting a fair amount of algae, but I understand that has more to do with amount of fertilizer. Regarding light, I'm at 75 PAR under 5,000 K High intensity LED from Orchids Ltd. [This table (all paphs and phrags) has one 4' tube and light is at least 24" above plants canopy.] There is a conversion for FC, but I don't have it. Hope this helps. Also, I was having trouble since that last post with things in rockwool staying wet too long (dead of winter here), especially the smaller pots (which makes no sense to me, but...) So, I have just repotted some phrags in Orchiata 80%, 10% charcoal and 10% growstone. The larger pots, as this one had great roots, but the small 3" did not??? They are requiring more water, obviously, and we will see the results. I also had some brown lesions developing on the leaves, which I thought might have been a result of the staying wet/too much fertilizer. Unfortunately, I learned when I visited Woodstream for their open house last weekend, that my brown lesions are caused by spider mites ?#@?#. Ones so small (apparently flat mites), I cannot see them with 60 power other than to see tiny black specs that look like dust. In any event, I may have re-potted in error... time will tell which they like better as far as potting. Now I have to deal with the spider mites when it's too cold to spray outside. Will try alcohol until spring and pray!


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## PeteM (Jan 16, 2020)

southernbelle said:


> I was just going to post and saw you found this. The one negative about rockwool is that I was getting a fair amount of algae, but I understand that has more to do with amount of fertilizer. Regarding light, I'm at 75 PAR under 5,000 K High intensity LED from Orchids Ltd. [This table (all paphs and phrags) has one 4' tube and light is at least 24" above plants canopy.] There is a conversion for FC, but I don't have it. Hope this helps. Also, I was having trouble since that last post with things in rockwool staying wet too long (dead of winter here), especially the smaller pots (which makes no sense to me, but...) So, I have just repotted some phrags in Orchiata 80%, 10% charcoal and 10% growstone. The larger pots, as this one had great roots, but the small 3" did not??? They are requiring more water, obviously, and we will see the results. I also had some brown lesions developing on the leaves, which I thought might have been a result of the staying wet/too much fertilizer. Unfortunately, I learned when I visited Woodstream for their open house last weekend, that my brown lesions are caused by spider mites ?#@?#. Ones so small (apparently flat mites), I cannot see them with 60 power other than to see tiny black specs that look like dust. In any event, I may have re-potted in error... time will tell which they like better as far as potting. Now I have to deal with the spider mites when it's too cold to spray outside. Will try alcohol until spring and pray!



Dead of winter.. Ha, wait till next week. It's been a mild winter so far in Baltimore. I guess you can't win with phrag mixes, no matter what you try it seems they need to be repotted every few years to keep them happy. Thanks for sharing all your info. I grow my phrags under similar conditions, LED (two 1800w UV full spectrum x6 COB from Amazon on lightrail movers), recently switched from two 250w HID metal halide agrosun bulbs. But I'm in a basement grow room where the humidity moves between 64 and 87%, temps in the winter are 65-78F. I grow most of them in a Orchiata/ Perlite / Charcoal mix also, but recently moved to replace the Orchiata with kiwi bark to see if it would hold up longer. I water through the pot almost every other day with RO, and I grow on a bench, not a tray. I use to grow in a tray of water and spent hours each weekend cleaning out the tray, but they LOVED it. 

I think you are right about being too wet (I don't believe you have spider mites, even though I trust Bill and I would agree with him if that was his advice). I've actually never had issues with spider mites on my phrags ever. But I could be convinced otherwise if you have a picture. I had a complete spider mite infestation that took off like a rocket this summer on my cattleyas, cymbidiums, angraecoids. It was my first time dealing with them and they tore through the undersides of leaves leaving distinct hard ridges, or stripes down the middle fold of the cattleya leaf.. in the strap leafed orchids they ate away like sand paper, and the bottoms of some cymbidium leaves looked like they were more white than green. Not fun and a pain to get rid of because of the areas of the plants you need to reach and the frequency of which you need to treat to kill their stages. Luckily, they are spiders and don't require a highly toxic insecticide to get rid of.. which is great for indoor growing. I still treat twice a month, the entire collection and I used/use this (GrowSafe Bio-Pesticide Organic All-Natural Miticide, Fungicide Insecticide).

Everything grows in close quarters but the mites didn't touch the phrags. I do get brown spots on occasion. Some look like lesions on the leaf, slightly sunken, multiple middle of the older leaf, others are speckled at the very end of the newest leaf. Phrags have a very easy to read warning flag that your media is breaking down or there is a bacteria / rot issue and their roots are not happy. When I see any of these spots, I know the roots are not happy and I repot as soon as I can. I find that after I repot.. the remaining portion of the newest leaf will grow out without spots and the plant bounces back. Out of all my orchids, I find phrags are the easiest and most resilient, fastest growing and I can repot them any time but the dead of summer (for me they hate the heat and stall growing). There are a lot of amazing phrag growers on this website and I'm sure a treasure trove of info for all different growing conditions.. I'm probably on the warmer side of indoor growers. 

Thanks again for your update. I think I'll still try the rockwool, see what happens for a season. Worse case I repot next year. I did actually pick up some growstones this week and was planning to throw one or two in the mix for whatever 'magic' they leach out. Probably run into you at the forum, glad to meet another phrag grower in the region.


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## southernbelle (Jan 17, 2020)

NYEric said:


> The old glass tube type used to require protective wear. The new stuff (growdan) is totally different.


Thanks!


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## southernbelle (Jan 17, 2020)

Here are photos. Help? Both catts and phrags displayed this. in catts buds dried up 





last pic is a paph


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## PeteM (Jan 17, 2020)

southernbelle said:


> Here are photos. Help? Both catts and phrags displayed this. in catts buds dried up View attachment 17765
> View attachment 17766
> View attachment 17767
> View attachment 17768
> ...


YEP! Mites. wow, thanks for sharing.


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## NYEric (Jan 17, 2020)

Rockwool is good on the surface because it retains moisture while allowing roots to grow across the top and get air. Regarding the brown on leaves, check for thrips also.


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## southernbelle (Jan 17, 2020)

PeteM said:


> YEP! Mites. wow, thanks for sharing.


Wish it weren’t. I’m used to various bugs including two-spotted spider mites from growing roses, but these got away from me because they are not visible to identify even with 40x magnification. I saw them after I wiped the leaf with alcohol and looked at the swab under 60x. They were moving because of the alcohol, so I knew it was a critter, but couldn’t tell what. Suspected mites but has no idea any existed this small.
Woodstream has this exact damage on a shipment of Phrags they got from another vendor.
I took a picture thru an inexpensive microscope (that works through the Photo Booth app) of them on the leaf of
Miltoniopsis. Here it is. Not totally focused, as it was hard to keep the leaf flat and still.
I will attempt to control them with alcohol until the weather allows me to take them outside to spray Avid repeatedly.


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## southernbelle (Jan 17, 2020)

NYEric said:


> Rockwool is good on the surface because it retains moisture while allowing roots to grow across the top and get air. Regarding the brown on leaves, check for thrips also.


Thanks Eric. Not thrips. You can see those


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## PeteM (Jan 18, 2020)

southernbelle said:


> View attachment 17811
> View attachment 17812
> 
> Wish it weren’t. I’m used to various bugs including two-spotted spider mites from growing roses, but these got away from me because they are not visible to identify even with 40x magnification. I saw them after I wiped the leaf with alcohol and looked at the swab under 60x. They were moving because of the alcohol, so I knew it was a critter, but couldn’t tell what. Suspected mites but has no idea any existed this small.
> ...






C. Chia Lin ‘New City’ , Pot. Afternoon delight, Cym. Dayanum.. I commiserate. Good luck and keep up the treatments.


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## southernbelle (Jan 18, 2020)

PeteM said:


> View attachment 17821
> View attachment 17822
> View attachment 17823
> 
> C. Chia Lin ‘New City’ , Pot. Afternoon delight, Cym. Dayanum.. I commiserate. Good luck and keep up the treatments.


Aha! I've got one catt with the damage your first pic shows on the back of its leaf. Didn't recognize that as spider mite damage, as well #%#!%#% I don't mind dealing with spraying when the weather is nice and I can take the plants outside. I hate this this time of year...


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