The Parvi's, culture idea's please

[Eric Muehlbauer]

I recognize the tag from Andy's......

 

[Rick]

I recognize the tag from Andy's......

That's were I got it originally. I had it potted this way for 3 years before its demise.

 

[DavidH]

I'm still trying to learn how to grow my armeniacums and micranthums. I have about 150 of each. So far, most of them are in CHC, but some are in bark. I have lots of new baby growths in the CHC, but the bark has the larger plants. The CHC stays much wetter than the bark. I also have a few in a coir/diatomite mix and they're sending out stolons versus new growths at the base of the older growths.

As for flowering, I think the cold temperatures finally spiked the micranthums to push out their buds (58 F at night in the greenhouse). I have one plant that's sending up two spikes on different growths, with one of the flowers getting ready to fade. I have about 12 more starting to push up the buds. Armeniacums, on the other hand, have been blooming since June. There's always a plant somewhere pushing up a spike. I've had very few bud blasts on armeniacums while micranthums have been around 50%. My micranthums from Sam Tsui have been the most reliable bloomers (50% of his have budded/bloomed, whereas about 10% of my imported ones have budded/bloomed).

 

[Eric Muehlbauer]

150 of each?????!!!!!!!! No wonder you can bloom them! I've got 2 clones of each.....neither of which like the idea of blooming.....Eric

 

[NYEric]

must like them...

 

[DavidH]

Yep, I like them.

 

[tim]

parvi ideas

I was fortunate enough to visit the grower of armeniacum 'Nova' FCC/AOS, which has the highest FCC of any plant ever awarded. He said that what really benefits armeniacum and micranthum (not necessarily other parvis - he didn't have experience with the others) is a handful of "chicken grit" - crushed oystershell - as a top dressing when the plant begins to show a bud. So calcium it is...

As far as making it to that point, I'd say good water, correct temps and overall good culture are your best bets...these plant are "fussier" about these conditions than alot of other paphs, so are good determinants of your overall growing conditions.

-Tim

 

[NYEric]

H.P. Norton said that it takes too long to break down the calcium from eggshells so I'm going to look thru the threads here for a liquid solution.

 

[JDY]

Liquid lime

After talking to Sam Tsui i started using liquid lime on all of my Orchids. One time a month on Paphiopedilums i didn't ask him how much or how often so i use 1 tsp. My other plants every 3 months.

Liquid Dolomitic Lime ONLY!
The kind i use is called GET-A-LAWN made by RainGrow www.raingrow.com 1-877-232-7651 i bought it at Sears.

Hope this helps
Jon

 

[cnycharles]

H.P. Norton said that it takes too long to break down the calcium from eggshells so I'm going to look thru the threads here for a liquid solution.

I heard that somewhere else recently, but elsewhere I've read that if you use cold water the lime can leach out much more quickly, almost too quickly. They suggested using warm water so that you didn't get an overdose, and to not use the crushed lime found in garden supply stores. I don't know which one is 'right'.

The other thing you can do is to just use fertilizer that has calcium/magnesium right in the mix, and or use calcium nitrate straight fertilizer from time to time which is where most of these fertilizers get their calcium. Calcium is very important for new growth, when our poinsettias are starting to get red bracts we spray with pharm. grade calcium water to keep them from burning. Same general problem happens with orchids in that leading edges can't get enough as it doesn't move really quickly in the plant, and it must be in constant supply as it doesn't translocate from one spot to another like nitrogen.

 

[Rick]

We've gone over this before, but I'll through it out again for discussion.

The point of adding oyster shell or lime is not to supplement calcium (there is more than enough in your fertilizer), but to buffer the pH of your potting mix.

Without lime, crushed coral, dolomite, or oyster shell addition, the pH of your potting mix will be acidic. Parvis (with the exception of delanatii) and brachys come out of limestone based soils that are usually neutral to basic in pH.

There are lots of physiological process that are facilitated at certain pH ranges (such as the uptake of nutrients). So I can't guess which ones they might be for parvis. But if that's what they like to grow in in the wild it's a good starting point for greenhouse culture.

 

[cnycharles]

We've gone over this before, but I'll through it out again for discussion.

The point of adding oyster shell or lime is not to supplement calcium (there is more than enough in your fertilizer), but to buffer the pH of your potting mix.

Without lime, crushed coral, dolomite, or oyster shell addition, the pH of your potting mix will be acidic. Parvis (with the exception of delanatii) and brachys come out of limestone based soils that are usually neutral to basic in pH.

There are lots of physiological process that are facilitated at certain pH ranges (such as the uptake of nutrients). So I can't guess which ones they might be for parvis. But if that's what they like to grow in in the wild it's a good starting point for greenhouse culture.

thanks for the refresher for new people,..... another point of using certain fertilizers is that the same effect can happen. If you use certain types, a plant gives off certain 'wastes' through it's roots to take up the elements of the fertilizer. By using the different types, the media can then head either basic or acidic. If you have a media that has perfect aeration, then using a fertilizer to achieve the proper pH helps keep the pores open. If you toss in too much of a small substance it can clog things up, potentially. two sides to the coin. If the plant doesn't mind small pore spaces and you can mix the additive evenly and the pores are still fairly even preventing unwanted dead spots then you're in business either way.