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What you're doing is just fine. It is nice to have a little science behind your decisions, but there is so much variability from plant to plant and from season to season, that you will never get one clear answer as to what works best. If your plants are growing well, you are doing the right...

Excellent question!! Mike

Ray You need to weigh it and it needs to be the same fertilizer that you will be using on the plants. The purpose is to set equal TDS and actual concentration, removing ion size and charge density from consideration. My meter is a cheap Hanna that I bought on eBay. It looked like the dozens...

If you have a TDS meter and you want to make the most of it, the process is fairly straightforward. Prepare a solution at about 800 ppm using your fertilizer and distilled or RO water. Perform serial dilutions to get 400, 200 and 100 ppm. Put the TDS meter into the 800 ppm solution and adjust...

Guru, I do accept what you say and have re-labelled the plant. You invested the time to investigate the differences in the forms and your understanding is far greater than mine. I will leave the original label in the pot too, but only as a reference to clonal names of parents. I should...

Thanks. I'll make a note on the tag. The plant was from Sam Tsui and I would normally defer to him. Also, I think that one of the parents was AOS awarded, so, as a species, it may have received additional review before the award was official. Mike

The one on the left is Barbara Larkin, armeniacum x Fumi's Delight, out of a flask purchased from Windy Hill Gardens in 2013. Healthy plant, but a slooow grower. The one in the center is villosum fma amnamense, purchased at a local orchid meeting, but I believe originally from OI. The one on...

I agree regarding the Brachys. Their roots seem to break off for no good reason. It is best to leave them alone as long as possible. Mike

I go as long as 3 years with mature plants, but I use Orchiata, and I do check the roots, if a plant is having problems. The seedlings probably once a year after they have been moved into individual pots. Mike

I've bloomed several from this cross, but I don't believe any have been as nice as your FS. Mike

The times I have been there, I was the only one, and I was there mostly to pick up flasks so that they wouldn't get beat up during shipment. For this most recent trip, I had been in touch with him earlier by e-mail and had indicated that I wanted to buy some mature plants too. I already knew...

Just trees down. There are a bunch of large ash trees that died 2-3 years ago and the tops break off in these strong winds. We had sustained winds of 40-50 mph for about 18 hrs. I went out yesterday morning and cleared off the road, but I didn't feel safe with so much debris coming off of the...

I see a lot of people in Kentucky have died. I thought you lived further to the east. Let us know if you are OK. Mike

Many thanks for taking the time to share these photos. It really helps me understand what the plants prefer. Mike

Looks like a good selection. Would be nice to see some photos, if you get a chance. Don't know if you have potted out the tigrinum yet, but they do very well in moss for the first year or so. Mike

Ray These little white balls are very interesting. In forty years of repotting, I didn't see them until about 4-5 years ago. It kind of looks like little white eggs or styrofoam balls. I see them most of the time as a mono layer with dozens of them stuck side-by-side. Sometimes they are on...

I see it frequently in bark. I had inquired about it some time ago and someone suggested it was part of a slime mold's life cycle. It does seem to match photos on the internet, but I really don't know. It doesn't seem to hurt the plants. Mike

The tigrinum in question are not from Sam. They are from a guy in the Chicago area. They got pulled into this thread because you could see the tips of the leaves in one of the photos of Sam's plants and an ST member inquired about them. Sam's tigrinum are the real thing. The tigrinum in...

The leaves on these are unlike any tigrinum I have seen and the plants grow like weeds. Also, the variation in the foliage indicates that it is a hybrid. I will know for sure when they bloom. I believe it is an honest mistake and that somewhere a label was mixed up. This flask cost me $350 +...

Was working at a research facility when a co-worker from the Philippines brought a phalaenopsis to work. I was stunned by the beauty of the flower. Our home had a sunroom with a lot of foliage plants and it took about 6 months to convert to mostly orchids. That was 40 years and three...