Does my vanda look alright to you?

[Susie11]

I have a vanda -a coerulea, it is causing me quite a bit of concern -again. It has not bloomed for me -yet- although it is of blooming size. I feed it twice a week with a weak balanced fert. I have just started to give it high potash though at a quarter strength. I was growing it on the windowsill in a south east facing window but as the weak sun has become even weaker I have just put it under a 40w 6500k lamp. The colour of the leaves bothers me as does that fact that the last leaf to finish growing was at least two cm shorter than the others. Is there something that I should be doing that I am not?

 

[Cheyenne]

I find that on my vandas(cerulea included) that they will put out new leaves before the other ones are done growing. Then before the next one is a few inches long you can see another leaf in the crown. They grow pretty fast coming out of the crown then when they look like they are mature they will continue growing just slower. Give it time it will elongate. It looms fine.

 

[Susie11]

Thanks Cheyenne. I was told that it looked too yellow and that it was, "crying out for light". I am not sure what to do or what to think anymore.

 

[Cheyenne]

If it was to dark green I think it would be crying out for light. My ceruleas are light green in color like yours. I find them not very picky about conditions. I have grown them in very high light(almost full sun) and pretty low light. The only difference is they will produce more spikes with more light. They do need cool weather to flower though. Mine spend a month or two around 50 degrees at night and and it always makes them spike. Yours looks like it could grow a few more leaves first, but it could spike soon.

 

[Susie11]

Great! Thanks Cheyenne. That is good to know. I was really worried that it wasn't getting enough light. I did think that dark green leaves equalled too little light but then someone else said that it looked light starved so I was very confused. The pictures of coerulea that I have seen all had leaves the same colour as mine so that is good. I shall just let it do it's thing then. There are more leaves coming from the crown so hopefully, now that it is under the lamp they should reach their full length.

 

[NYEric]

Don't forget they like cool nights.

 

[Paul Mc]

Oooh, I was not aware of that. So the yellow coloration is ok then? Sorry if I misspoke on the other forum, but as I said I'm new to Vandas as well.

 

[Susie11]

Don't forget they like cool nights.

Thanks for that NYEric. Living in the UK we do cool nights really well. I have it under a grow lamp during the day which keeps it at a steady 24oc (78) and then it gets eight hours of about 10oc (50) at night.

Oooh, I was not aware of that. So the yellow coloration is ok then? Sorry if I misspoke on the other forum, but as I said I'm new to Vandas as well.

No problem Paul. I am a learner too. It is only by making mistakes that we can learn and I make a lot! ha ha.

 

[cnycharles]

i'm a great learner in that case. wish i could slow down the learning a bit sometimes

 

[Susie11]

Oh but where is the fun it that? oke: