Cymbidium care

[Theodoreorchidking]

I want to get into cymbidiums. The very large flowering ones. However I grow inside with lights and have very cold winters. I know I can probably grow these but blooming is the issue. How cold do they need to get? Sellers are always just trying to sell and say they will bloom in your set up no matter what.

 

[big923cattleya]

Cymbidiums that you would like to grow are not really considered as under lights orchids. Why? Because they can get incredibly huge! It would be as if you sacrifice space for say, a half dozen orchids for one cymbidium. Over the years, I have never encountered anyone that would seriously consider that tradeoff.
They are fairly easy to grow as outdoor plants that can be brought inside the home for the coldest part of winter.
When you hit upon the right conditions, lots of summer sun, lots of water and fertilizer, they bloom incredibly well. But if grown properly become happiest in 8-12" pots, or bigger. I overwintered my few in front of a sliding glass door back then.
When I got into orchids in the mid 70's on Long Island, several people that I knew grew a few Cymbidiums. They developed huge baseball sized pseudobulbs, large clusters of leaves and threw up to three inflorescences per bulb. Many plants put out 40 flowers or more. They are long lasting. I grew a couple outside and brought them in after the first few frosts in the fall. Those chilly nights promoted spike development. The actual buds become a little tender but the plants had no trouble with several nights down near freezing. After lots of summer water, sun and fertilizer, they would put on quite a show! Back then there was a grower out towards the eastern end of Long Island who had acres and acres under glass. Bianchi Orchids grew nothing but standard Cymbidiums! Why? For the cut flower trade. I seem to recall them shipping thousands and thousands of developing bloom spikes to far off destinations, West Coast, Netherlands, and Germany to name a few. It was quite an operation. Well that business eventually folded because of the owners wanting to retire and no one would buy the business because of the nature of the business and skyrocketing real estate taxes! All of their inventory was sold to Rod McClellan Orchids in the Bay Area of California. Thousands of plants were shipped out there. But they went out of business too later on. But that Oakland Bay area had a great climate for growing Cymbidiums.

You have to be careful with some sellers. What is a seller's job? To sell. Not to tell the truth always. I would be suspect of anyone telling me that "you can grow things well in ANY conditions!!!

 

[mrhappyrotter]

I want you to get into Cymbidiums, too! They've become my most recent orchid obsession, but I'm far less knowledgeable about and experienced with them than slippers. In other words, I'm still learning. Also, I grow in a completely different climate from you and I have a different focus than yours (i.e. fragrance versus flowering size), so my experience and preferences don't directly apply to you.

Growing indoors year round under artificial lights, you probably will find a lot standard large flowered Cymbidiums challenging to flower reliably. You may need to acquire several different hybrids (or species) and experiment to see which ones do best for you in your conditions.

Do you have space to grow them outdoors from spring through fall while temperatures are above freezing? That seems to be one of the most common ways that successful "indoor" growers handle standard Cymbs.

Indoors in winter, keeping the humdity elevated is sometimes tough, especially when the outdoor air is dry and you're running heating. So, even if you get the temperatures right, don't forget to keep things humid in the grow area. The buds will drop if humidity is too low. And, the warmer the conditions, the higher that humidity needs to be to compensate.

For standard Cymbidiums, you usually want to acheive nighttime temps around 50F but below 60F (10C - 15C) to help initiate spikes, cooler is fine though. That's usually easy to do if you can leave them outdoors in the fall, may be harder if you grow indoors only. Once the spikes are set, it sounds like they're a little more tolerant of slightly warmer temperatures, but I wouldn't push it too far.

As far as what the sellers are telling you: You are correct, some of those vendors probably are telling you what you want to hear even if it's not accurate. However, there's been a lot of progress with hybridizing "standard" Cymbidiums and many modern hybrids (and even species) are easier to bloom and more temperature tolerant than ever before. Again, I'm not as knowledgeable about these things as I wish I was, so I don't know which specific hybrids or breeding lines to recommend for you and your conditions. Wish I could help there.

You may want to reach out directly to folks like Tim Culbertson and Fred Clarke to see if they have any Cymbidiums for sale that would work in your conditions. There's also Santy Orchids and Santa Barbara Orchid Estate. These are knowledgeable and reputable vendors who have a vested interest in happy customers and seem to be willing/happy to disucss things to figure out what's best for you.

As a side note: I'm finding that Cymbs are much more adaptable than their reputation might suggest. I mostly stick with hybrids that were specifically bred with warmth tolerance in mind, so it's not surprising that's been my experience. If you're willing to compromise a bit on the flower size, a lot of the commonly available warmth tolerant hybrids can be grown and bloomed indoors. These are typically hybrids that involve species like C. ensifolium from section Jensoa crossed with standard Cymbidium hybrids. One of my more recent surprises is a hybrid called C. Chen's Ruby. It's compact growing, fragrant, brightly colored, larger flowered than most of this type of breeding, and it's nicely fragrant.