# Phalaenopsis gigantea



## Hamlet (Jan 13, 2015)

Bloomed in December. I can take no credit for this one as I bought it in bud.

This is probably my favourite Phal since seeing it bloom in person. It looks so much nicer than on pictures.

The flowers were fragrant, if I had to describe the smell, I would say that it is like a mix of honey and burned plastic, quite a strange smell.


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## Daniel Herrera (Jan 13, 2015)

Beautiful plant! :clap: 
Can you show us how big is the plant?


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## lepetitmartien (Jan 13, 2015)

A beauty anyway 
(We need beauty in this world NOW)


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## abax (Jan 13, 2015)

P. gigantea is always beautiful! The patterns on the petals
are lovely and a really old, large plant is just impressive
as hell.


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## JeanLux (Jan 14, 2015)

Cool pics of these beauties!!!! Jean


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## Ozpaph (Jan 14, 2015)

really beautiful


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## Wendy (Jan 14, 2015)

Very nice buy!


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## Migrant13 (Jan 14, 2015)

Love the spots. Do post a photo of the whole plant if you get a chance. Trying to decide if I should make space for one of these in my collection!


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## jjkOC (Jan 14, 2015)

Very beautiful markings!


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## SlipperFan (Jan 14, 2015)

I like that flower!


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## abax (Jan 15, 2015)

Definitely, make room for a gigantea! You can mount 'em,
throw 'em in a basket and hang sideways or just let 'em
hang out of a pot on its side. It's a "must have" type of
plant. Mr. Lin at Big Leaf has beautiful gigantea for sale.


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## Brabantia (Jan 15, 2015)

Very nice I like it ... but I cannot grow all what I like because I am always short of place.


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## Secundino (Jan 15, 2015)

Very nice!


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## Hamlet (Jan 15, 2015)

Thanks for the comments!



Daniel Herrera said:


> Beautiful plant! :clap:
> Can you show us how big is the plant?



This is the plant (no longer in bloom):






While taking the pictures I noticed that it's growing a second flower spike, so hopefully this year I'll get two hanging spikes with those beautiful spotted flowers :drool: :








Migrant13 said:


> Love the spots. Do post a photo of the whole plant if you get a chance. Trying to decide if I should make space for one of these in my collection!



I know the problem of not having enough space all too well myself. There's many orchids I want but simply have no space for, like the big multifloral Paphs. 
But this was a plant that I just needed to have. Sometimes I just want something and _need_ to have it. All my doubts were gone when I took the plant out of the box though, I fell in love immediately. This is not a purchase I regret. It's a wonderful species, especially in flower.



abax said:


> Definitely, make room for a gigantea! You can mount 'em,
> throw 'em in a basket and hang sideways or just let 'em
> hang out of a pot on its side. It's a "must have" type of
> plant. Mr. Lin at Big Leaf has beautiful gigantea for sale.



If you like Phals and have the space I'd say it's a must have, too. It's the king/queen of Phals, if you ask me. Mr. Lin has a great website and very impressive plants, I read his article on gigantea culture before buying mine.


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## The Mutant (Jan 15, 2015)

Hamlet said:


> Thanks for the comments!
> 
> [...]
> 
> ...


Or you do like me; you buy a bunch of potentially large multiflora Paphs and then hope that some of them survives. :rollhappy:

Dead plants don't take up much space after all...


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## bigleaf (Jan 15, 2015)

Like most of the orchids, Phal gigantea is not difficult to grow if basic culture requirement is met. It likes a lot of light, good air movement, and thrive in warm temperature. It has a tendency to rot if kept wet and cold. Growers in cooler climate can grow this species by using bottom heat. However, as plant gets larger bottom heat is not practical because large plant takes up bench space.

The fascination of this species is the gigantic leaves. Similar reason of keeping Bulb. phalaenopsis. But unlike Bulbo, phal gigantea has nice fragrance and flowers are beautiful.

Another myth is that this species needs to be very large to flower. This is not always true. If kept in low light, plants tend to develop large leaves but no flowers. In bright light, plant will bloom on smaller leaves span. From seed to bloom can be as quickly as 2-3 years if seedlings suffer no setback.


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## Migrant13 (Jan 15, 2015)

Hamlet said:


> Thanks for the comments!
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Thanks for all the helpful ("enabling") information. Looks like I'll find space for this one for sure.


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## Hamlet (Jan 27, 2015)

bigleaf said:


> Like most of the orchids, Phal gigantea is not difficult to grow if basic culture requirement is met. It likes a lot of light, good air movement, and thrive in warm temperature. It has a tendency to rot if kept wet and cold. Growers in cooler climate can grow this species by using bottom heat. However, as plant gets larger bottom heat is not practical because large plant takes up bench space.
> 
> The fascination of this species is the gigantic leaves. Similar reason of keeping Bulb. phalaenopsis. But unlike Bulbo, phal gigantea has nice fragrance and flowers are beautiful.
> 
> Another myth is that this species needs to be very large to flower. This is not always true. If kept in low light, plants tend to develop large leaves but no flowers. In bright light, plant will bloom on smaller leaves span. From seed to bloom can be as quickly as 2-3 years if seedlings suffer no setback.



Thank you for your post and culture tipps! That's an impressive little gigantea in your photo, so small and flowering already. The longest leaf on mine is 33cm and it was a first blooming, and here I thought that was small!


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