australian terrestrials

[NYEric]

well I ordered one of about half or more of the plants, so I'm sure we had most of the same plants on the list (though I think you were the only one who ordered the pterygodium catholica, though I was thinking about it)

No I meant the habenaria and the stenoglottis.

Nice haul... Stenoglottis grows like a weed over here... I think the growers here use a bark-based mix for it.. Same as paphs..

Thanx for the info, I did the same.

 

[cnycharles]

shoots!

a few pots have shoots coming up;

thelymitra nuda 'marble hill'

thelymitra aff. frenchii (a true Blue orchid)

thelymitra 'melon glow'

in the two joe pots I put the pterostylis (or most of them); one has three different species
and the other has three different hybrids. these two shoots are p. pedunculata and p. nutans

 

[Kevin]

Awesome!! Congrats!:clap:

 

[Marc]

Exciting times ahead, looks like your taking care of them the right way.

 

[NYEric]

Wow, I have to check my thelymitras then. Looking good.

 

[biothanasis]

:clap:.... Good luck!!

 

[cnycharles]

my australian terrestrials are progressing nicely! all of the pterostylis are up and have nice whorls of leaves, the two diplodiums (pterostylis-like greenhoods) are up; the truncatum has a whorl and no flower and the robustum has a flower bud that is almost open believe it or not! the leptoceras have all emerged and most of the thelymitras have emerged, though I thought the white thely (t. latifolia 'white') was coming up but now I don't see it . the diuris orientis did the same thing, but now a shoot is progressing; the d. sulphurea has a double-leaf shoot and is growing nicely. just the corybas haven't emerged yet, but from nyeric's reports of watching them grow up through the sides of his clear pots, I'm assuming that they will in a few weeks

I have a small LED 'flood' light which I put over the diuris to get them the most light, as I've read that they can take lots of light. I also have a spotlight reflector with a strong compact fluorescent bulb in it, and I've left them both on day and night for several weeks and the shoots all look strong except for the thelymitra goldfingers 'pinkie', whose shoot top looks sort of burnt. I don't know if that is because of the lights, or because the media has too much fertilizer in it? if anyone has any idea, feel free to let me know

diplodium robustum 'green', you can see the forks of the lip, almost ready to flower; exciting!

two joe pots with the pterostylis. the front one has the hybrids Hoodwink, Talhood and x ingens; the back one has species curta nutans and pedunculata

front left is the diuris orientis 'SA' which finally emerged a few days ago. behind that with the double leaf is diuris sulphurea and the thick, bluish-green shoot is thelymitra nuda 'marble hill'. over to the back right is thelymitra melon glow. if you look closely, you can see smaller shoots at the base of the tall shoots of thelymitra nuda and melon glow, which i'm assuming are new side-shoots or tubers which are growing alongside the original ones

the three shoots coming up are leptoceras menziesii (finally!) we'll see if that banana skin in a bag treatment of the tubers will induce them to flower. if not, then hopefully they'll increase nicely instead

this tubular leaf is hiding a set of flower buds deep inside! this is cyrtostylis robusta which just emerged a few days ago

this fuzzy leaf is thelymitra flava x latifolia; the leaf is cool!

this funky leaf is thelymitra goldfingers 'pinkie'. the leaf at first looked just fine, but then it started to gnarl on top. the base is still growing, but i'm wondering if it is looking poorly because of too much fertilizer, and if so I should probably water it a bunch to try and wash some of it out? maybe it needs a little bit more shade though I figured at this stage they would all appreciate more light (we have had very little light here since I planted these, except for one week about a week ago besides the electric lights)

this isn't australian and probably not a tuber, but being a cool terrestrial orchid I wanted to include it's progress. this is the south african (or african) stenoglottis longifolium

this whorl is diplodium truncatum 'You Yangs Victoria' which I believe denotes the original location of this clone

I forgot to take a pic of this earlier - it's thelymitra aff. frenchii, which means that it looks a lot like t. frenchii, but different enough that it might be a new species. I think often if something has been determined, generally to be a new species that looks like another but hasn't been formally described yet, it receives the 'affine' or 'affinity' designation

this is a shot of my lights and tuber collection except for the corybas out in the kitchen. shows the led light on left and compact fluorescent on the right. there are also some paph seedlings in another pan to the right, but they don't get enough light there

this is the LED flood light which is more of a spot; I think it's a 16 or 18 watt bulb that I bought at lowes. it wasn't cheap, probably around $40, and I had looked at LED panels online and other floods, but this bulb was close at hand and I didn't have to pay shipping. the australian terrestrials like to stay cool, so I wanted to try LED's to try and help keep them cooler. it's pretty bright and I can move it up or down for the really light-loving plant when they get taller. the LED's are supposed to be much cooler and use a lot less electricity; the ones online for plants used red and blue 'bulbs' and can be specialized for growth (blue) or red (flowering) ; the one I got at lowes was just a cool spot not designed for plants, but since the shoots are staying compact then i'm assuming that they are getting a decent amount of light

I don't know if and of the plants that are just leaves now will have a flower spike emerge later, or if what I see is what I will have this year. time will tell!

 

[NYEric]

If you look carefully in my thread you can see the pine needles I found in NYC and put w/ the Aussies! :rollhappy

 

[cnycharles]

I tried to find your pics in your misc. orchids thread but didn't see them, where are those pics?

 

[NYEric]

I posted separately in the "Tell me about it".

 

[SlipperFan]

All kinds of wondrous things coming along!

 

[paphioboy]

nice progress, Charles. Looks like they might flower in September ( spring over here). IMHO, you can pot pterostylis curta separately from the others because it is a fast grower and produces many underground stolons.

 

[cnycharles]

thanks. I most likely will do more pots next year, I was pressed for time and pots this winter when everything came in and will keep each different thing in it's own pot. I hope my plants soon look like dave mellard's!

 

[BrucherT]

Can’t resist following this thread up to see how all these plants did. I’ve sure never seen them for sale or must talked about. I know mortality must be high. Anybody succeed long term?

 

[cnycharles]

David mellard in Georgia has grown many of them for multiple years successfully. I had some for a few years but too many moves, job and apartment changes and distractions prevented me from having them more than a few years. Once covid came around and being too busy I didn’t follow up to see if he had more

I did have some pterostylis in other photo threads which had some flowers, many of these didn’t amount to much. That was three apartments ago!

 

[BrucherT]

David mellard in Georgia has grown many of them for multiple years successfully. I had some for a few years but too many moves, job and apartment changes and distractions prevented me from having them more than a few years. Once covid came around and being too busy I didn’t follow up to see if he had more

I did have some pterostylis in other photo threads which had some flowers, many of these didn’t amount to much. That was three apartments ago!

Very interesting! Thank you! Wonder if he’d sell some?

 

[cnycharles]

Very interesting! Thank you! Wonder if he’d sell some?

Believe it or not, he gives them away

 

[BrucherT]

Believe it or not, he gives them away

Well I’d LOVE to believe it…