Tom-DE
Well-Known Member
Congrats! That is pretty good considering it isn't a fast-growing species.
first ever flask, Paphiopedilum fairrieanum question
- Thread starter BrucherT
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Great growing. Looking forward to the flower!
Thanks, Tom! I’ll check them out.
This reply was to the wrong member so I deleted it.
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lol I’m happy to but those are repurposed drink containers! I think that particular one is from a “Naked” brand smoothie drink but I have some that are made from iced-tea beverage containers that have a concave bottom end, simulating Aircone on a small scale. I like tall, slender, square-shaped clear containers for these, as they seem to like to make long thin roots.
Glad you appreciate the roots. I find the roots on these to be a nightmare. They’re so fragile that repotting creates a lot of breakage and I have snapped the heads off several. I think I have 12 plants left, including two that I’m trying to rehab after all their roots snapped off. Sigh. Another plant was always the biggest but last year it sprang up a new fan without ever blooming.
Congratulations. Look at those beautiful roots! Can't wait to see the bloom. I read this post several months back. Just got my first flasks a few weeks ago. Wish I had remembered all the good info in this thread. Glad it resurfaced with your photos. Keep me in mind as well if you decide to sell any.
Thank you! I’m just thrilled that people notice the roots. It’s why I use clear containers. “Root ****” is a term I learned from the Neofinetia freaks and I grow many of those just for root ****!
There was SO much good help in this thread. My number one takeaway is, don’t separate the clump. Just pot it up and grow on. My next flask was P. druryi and I did that and they did better until I got a squirrel in my house that trashed a lot of stuff in its frantic escape attempts.
I also used Innocur and msn that stuff is stank-*** gold in a bottle. Thanks, Ray of First Rays!
What I didn’t know when I started with these P. fairrieanum is they’re one of the hardest species from flask. Lots of people have told me that since. But I have a dozen left out of 15. I’m hoping to bloom them all out and then trade or sell.
In the past, I’ve had a negative impression of AOS and awards and shows but I’ve been to a couple now and I think I my impression was dated and misguided. I’m considering joining and taking some plants to judging. I have collected whimsically but with care and have been told that some of my plants deserve awards. Sam Tsui and Terry Parker have been very kind with me and although I never made it out to Orchid Zone, I remain in awe of what it was, and stood for.
I don’t know of anyone else who has this precise line-bred P. fairrieanum cross from OZ and so if they’re good, as I hope, representing the species’ unique excellence, I hope I can name the clones and get them back into serious growers’ hands for breeding. I am concerned about what I have experienced as their root fragility, though. That has been so frustrating and anxiety-provoking. They like to be watered a lot and that need combined with our drippy hot summers, means the mix goes bad faster. I only repot slippers in spring, after blooming, in active growth.
Another word on this flask: they were at least a full year past needing to come out of flask when I got them and the stems on nearly all of them continue to be longer than I would like. This etiolation may have contributed somehow to their root issues. The largest of them, I gifted to my beloved Aunt Judy, who grew it indoors because she feared it was too fragile for the greenhouse. It etiolated greatly, a tower of pale leaves. When she passed, I took it home and here it is now, with the lower leaves having senesced and having sprouted a new growth. But all of these seem to have a long stem except the one I grew, again with Ray’s advice, in LECA. Below are photos of those two. I am really surprised that the one I gave Judy wasn’t first to bloom as it had always seemed the largest and most robust. Oh, these plants are always surprising me!
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Wow, thank you! I have felt disappointed that it took so long. Someone else in here or Orchid Board or somewhere bloomed some in 3 years from flask and I felt like I was doing something wrong. It’s funny though that when they DO produce a flush of growth, it seems very very fast. This bud was not visible 7 days before, when I watered. I’m always looking at them and trying to feel the swelling like the pros do… I don’t trust my fingers and usually can’t tell though. Anyway thank you!
Tom-DE
Well-Known Member
It is entirely possible to bloom in 3-4 years after deflasking but not for the average...
Your post continues all the good information on this thread. Thanks for the vocabulary lesson-etiolate. 
Hopefully you will someday get to name a clone after your Aunt Judy. When did you put the one seedling in lecca and how did it react? Was it also in the spring? I am growing my whole collection in lecca because I often travel for several weeks at a time and it seems that they can go longer without watering in lecca. However, because I am so new to this whole thing that means many of them were put in lecca at the end of summer. I am not seeing root growth I would like, which you know, is almost as good as a bloom . I am hoping that with spring that will change. I think you are onto something, only replanting in the spring.
Hopefully you will someday get to name a clone after your Aunt Judy. When did you put the one seedling in lecca and how did it react? Was it also in the spring? I am growing my whole collection in lecca because I often travel for several weeks at a time and it seems that they can go longer without watering in lecca. However, because I am so new to this whole thing that means many of them were put in lecca at the end of summer. I am not seeing root growth I would like, which you know, is almost as good as a bloom . I am hoping that with spring that will change. I think you are onto something, only replanting in the spring.Aw my pleasure!Your post continues all the good information on this thread. Thanks for the vocabulary lesson-etiolate.
I would like to name something after Judy, she would be shy about it but hopefully now she’s past that
.I put the seedling into LECA at its first repotting, not directly from flask but after 2 years in seedling bark. This was a seedling with only two roots had one broke off during repotting so I figured I had nothing to lose. I cannot say that growth has been faster than other specimens and it’s not the first to bloom BUT the plant does seem strong and steady and I note that unlike the other, more climb-y seedlings, its the base of its growth seems flush with the medium.
Ray always takes pains to explain that orchid roots adapt very specifically to their growing medium, that roots adapted to soil of bark will need to be replaced when adapting to LECA, so if your plant is doing well I would surmise that it is putting effort into establishing those LECA-optimized roots, which will enable a sudden flush of visible foliar growth once that rooting process is complete.
Yes, you are right. Ray does say that. Thanks for the encouraging words. I am going to try and be patient and see what happens when growth should pick up again in the spring.
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