Thank you for your kinds words. I do like these plants. I just wish they lasted longer in bloom. Can't have it all I guess.
I grow all my Catasetinae types (Catasetums, Clowesia, Mormodes, Cycnoches and their hybrids) either by the sunny window or under inflorescent tubes. I do not do anything other than reducing the watering frequencies during their dormant periods.
Different species have different length of dormancy periods and hybrids made by mixing different species can/will behave differently while they will for the most part follow the same patterns of growth and "rest".
I do not force set schedules on them, but rather I let them guide me in how to care for them. This, I believe is the best thing to do because each plant is slightly different and they will behave differently in different growing conditions. So I observe them and help them do their thing accordingly. I have only ever lost two plants in the last who knows how many years I have grown them.
One was a random rot during the growing season. The other was during the dormancy when I forgot to water the plant, and it just shriveled down to dry mess.
I have never taken them out of their pot and remove the roots. This is not necessary in my experience.
I usually only every disturb them when it is necessary like when there's no room left for further growth or otherwise repotting is needed.
Even then, I do not remove any roots. I just take plants out of the pot, gently shake and whatever falls off or not, that's it. Then, slide the whole thing in the new pot, fill the gap with fresh potting mix. Done! This is basically how I repot all plants I grow.
There was a time when I divided some of my Catasetums. That's about the only time I removed all the old mix for the practical reason as I needed to see clearly where the base of the plants is located.
Regarding the last question, I think you meant female flowers as male flowers are basically the more common form on many of these.
For female flower production, there are many theories, one of the two main ones being that one, plants have to be old and big enough and two, high level of light as some species are found to have higher rate of producing female flowers when exposed to full sun in-situ.
Even then, female flowers can occur rarely. Fred Clarke mentions in some of his product description how his Catasetum pileatum finally made female flowers for the first time after 20 years of growing it and he started to make some very long waited crosses he had been planning on.
I personally do not find the female flowers attractive and am happy without them. I do want them on certain plants though mainly for breeding purpose.
hope this helps answer your questions.
