Advice on deflasking Phrag. flask

[kiwi]

Hi all,
I will be recieving a flask of Phrag. Fritz Schomburg 'Zephyrus Best' x kovachii 'Warbird' from Sam (among others) soon but I am not that familiar with deflasking or growing these. Could anyone please provide some pointers of media and growing conditions for phrags? Thanks in advance.

 

[TrueNorth]

You'll find lots of information about this on the forum if you do a search.

Here's what I do....

You want a medium that retains moisture but is also open and aerated. I grow mine in 50/50 chopped sphagnum and perlite. Sometimes I add charcoal. I fill some of the space in the pot with styrofoam peanuts and add other ingredients to the mix as appropriate for the species i.e. gravel and dolomite chunks for kovachii and its hybrids.

You want to handle them as little as possible. The roots are quite brittle, so probably best not to try and separate them. There is debate about whether or not to remove the agar. I remove as much as I can without disturbing the roots too much.

I think it's important to give them lots of humidity for at least the first couple of weeks. I've used plastic bags for this successfully.

 

[kiwi]

Thanks for the tips

 

[NYEric]

Funny, someone recently posted a video of a St. Louis Orchid show which included how to pot up seedlings of this exact cross!