Dendrochilums

[Stone]

curranii....


pulcherrimum



wenzelii


parvulum


stenophyllum

 

[NYEric]

All very nice. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Greenpaph]

What a collection! Love the pavulum!

 

[spujr]

Nice collection and flowering! Do you give them all roughly the same culture?

 

[juliana]

These are so wonderfully grown. What a pleasure it is to see them.

 

[naoki]

Nice collection!

 

[Stone]

Nice collection and flowering! Do you give them all roughly the same culture?

Yes all exactly the same. They are very easy

 

[spujr]

Hope you don't mind if I add one of my own. D. kopfii 'Waterfield', it's been struggling past few years due to too much heat but this year I was able to move it to another place where it is doing much better and finally bloomed for me.



It is not nearly as well cultured as yours but hopefully on the right track.

 

[spujr]

magnum flowering a few weeks ago.

 

[Ozpaph]

what a lovely collection

 

[Phaladdict]

I recieved a few species recently, can I ask some general growing tips? Do you keep wet/damp all the time?

 

[spujr]

I recieved a few species recently, can I ask some general growing tips? Do you keep wet/damp all the time?

For the bigger plants, I prefer to let them dry out in between waterings, though not to let them get completely bone-dry. They also do well mounted as long as you give them ample of humidity and water regularly.

I heard other people growing successfully them by keeping them wet all the time. I tried this once on mine and saw some rotting issues so I stopped. Of course media might be the issue, I used a media with a lot of spagnum moss in the mix.

They (and I am speaking generally) like a lot of indirect light and for most of the year look like they are not doing anything other than just sitting there. Then one time a year you will see a sudden growth of new shoots and leaves and flowers shorty after. Again, can't say all of them do this, just my experience on the ones I own.

Hope this helps.

 

[richgarrison]

If you are being bitten by the dendrochilum bug, a couple of things to consider as your managerie grows. If you are growing them well, you'll end up repotting... and even if if they aren't growing extremely well for you, the health of the stuff in the pot becomes something of concern. I say that because putting spagnum into a potting mix seems like a great idea until the plant has been in that media for more than 9 months (give or take). If you are growing dampt to wet, the sphagnum will start to decay. Once that happens, you'll need to clean up the root system. Dendrochilums don't want you to mess with their root systems that much. So you set your plant back... Consequently you are wrestling with how do you get an open airy mix for their root system, that is always moist, and can be potted up without much disturbance... I grow 25 ish species, and they have almost all moved into small kiwi bark (ala Fred Clark @ Sunset Valley Orchids) and perlite. The kiwi decomposes basically as neutral, so as not to disturb the pH of the root zone. It is reasonably open (with the perlite) allowing you to water regularly. (mine get some level of watering everyday - just heavy mist on many days) The grassy looking species want to be grown very wet. I've started trying to use some rock wool (grodan grow cubes) in the mix for those (williamsii, tenellum, etc.) Jury is still out on that part.

 

[Phaladdict]

Thank you for great advise, I have orchiata and perlite, i suppose orchiata somewhath similar to kiwi (even if orchiata quality is going down really fast at least here in europe, some batches especially smaller grades are pure garbage recently and need lot of manual selection, so I'm experime ting with others barks and also ordering grodan cubes to see how some plants perform there) will move those in a mix like thath, also will try mounting a few, i have apoense mounted on cork and seems to do ok while the ones in sphagnum indeed seems stagnating

 

[richgarrison]

i didn't have very good luck with apoense... i think the plant i purchased just wasn't established... it languished for a few months. the last piece just went into the mulch pile yesterday. I do have a harder time with the smaller species. convolutum and bigger seem to do well for me. warrenii, microchilum... still alive after a a few years but certainly not flourishing.

 

[DrLeslieEe]

Love these... might have a few mini forms in my new miniature paludrarium.