Den superbum Advice needed - Orchid Board

Randy · #1 12-23-2005, 12:25 PM

I've had a den superbum for a 4 years now and only gotten keiki's. I'd like to figure out what I am doing wrong.

I did mess up when I first got it and it took a year to recover. It was purchased in September and I pulled it out of the pot to check the roots. As do many plants it had a degree of rotten roots, so off the came. I decided to mount the plant at that time as well. It's on a rather large piece of locust wood (it weighs about 5 pounds). I had no idea that it was about to go to sleep for the winter until after I did all of that. However, the next year it was a good Den and grew lots of roots. Not only did the wrap around the wood, but have gone up and down the stick and even dug into the wood.

All summer it's outside. It get's lots of bright light & morning sun until about 11 AM; unless it rains it get's watered every morning with a diluted solution of fertilizer (dyna-grow mixture of grow, bloom, mag-pro and a tiny bit of KLN). I have it in one of those dispensers like you would use for miracle grow. It is mixed so it should come out between 1/8 and 1/4 tsp. Everything is watered/fed the same way.

It comes in sometime in September and goes without water/fertilizer all winter. However it does get over spray (water mist only) when I'm misting nearby plants. My friend Ron from the OS I belong to says to leave these Dens needing dry rest Desert DRY until they flower. He does great that way. I'm not sure if mine gets too much water or what. Any advice would be helpful.

Thanks!
Randy

Sandra Billeter · #2 01-02-2006, 03:19 PM

We got ours about 15 months ago and it arrived mounted on cork bark with a moss ball around the roots. There were 6 bare canes and 2 new shoots. There were 2 keikis on the bare canes. I took the keikis and mounted one just as the parent had been mounted and gave the other away. We got blooms on the 2 new canes that had grown to about 24 inches but only on the bottom half of the canes. The blooms were 3 to 4 inches in diameter and smelled just like raspberries and there were over 2 dozen of them. We have a GH and the plants are hanging and the parent again has 2 canes about 30 inches long and the keiki has one cane about 30 inches long. We water every other day all year and spritz fertilizer on the root mass (20-10-20 urea free) 3 or 4 times a week. We change to Bloom Booster formula through the Fall and stop fertilizing in December until they bloom. The plants are doing really well and we're anxiously awaiting their blooming in March. Hope this helps.

Sandra in South Carolina [/img]