Deflasked Ghost ( Dendrophylax lindenii)- seeking advice

[professor plant]

I saw the item on Ebay and was tempted, but I have too many other orchids to address right now. Thanks for the suggestion. I know a few people are on the hunt.

[gravotrope]

Before I say anything, I have to admit that while I have read a lot about propagation, I have not attempted germinating and flasking anything. I have though, managed to restore several orchids that had bacterial and fungal problems. These have to do with an imbalance in the media, mostly. Since I didn't want to use a strong chemical to kill the fungus/bacteria I took the approach of inhibiting it instead, to let the plant do the rest of the work fighting it off since all of the new growth was strong.

If you've read somewhere that feeding them or giving them any kind of chemical is bad...don't wait a few days....wait a few WEEKS....because a few days is like an hour in orchid time. I had heard that some orchidists think the lichens provide nutrients to the ghost orchids in some form of beneficial relationship, so I hope you've read about that somewhere. If you decide to harvest any lichen from the wild do it with gloves, since your hands could introduce bacteria the plant doesn't normally come into contact with.

In order to rescue the sick plants, I had to be sure at first that it wasn't a virus. After isolating them and observing them for months, I was sure it wasn't a virus, so I treated with neem & soap, garlic water, and uncoated aspirin alternating in monthly low doses (half strength) and all of my plants...oncidiums with spots, cattleya with botyris, howeara with pinhead mold, phalaenopsis with no roots, all recovered.

I grow outside so I needed to come up with a strategy of building strong plants, and this works for me.

I recently purchased a Jamaican ghost orchid, and it is spectacular...the bloom started to open last night...the sepals are large and green and the flower is pale yellow, the guy said to culture them like a phalaenopsis, but they can handle as much light as a cattleya, and need the high humidity year round unlike the florida ghost which is drier and cooler in winter when everything in the everglades dries up.
And by dries up I mean it doesn't rain, but the humidity changes daily with the sunrise and sunset and rarely dips below 50% during the day, as compared to a more steady 75+% during the rainy season. He said the florida ones were tricky because sometimes after they flower they will wait 4 years before doing it again....and this is after they are already bloom size.

Good Luck! I hope they all survive. Also I bet they would grow faster and bloom more often if they had leaves.

[Stray59]

Alla you have a really nice looking set up - and it seems you are trying various planting techniques that may ensure better results. One question - I had not heard of using spanish moss as a substrate to keep them moist, without being too wet. Doesn't this break down rather quickly? Why not use regular sphagnum moss? Is there a difference or just a preference?
Thanks for the input - I purchased a Dendro. lindenii a last year at an orchid show - I was surprised as there were tons of roots in the clump and it was only $20.00.....then after a few days several roots started drying up regardless of the moisture available. I finally un-mounted it as it was going downhill and I was not happy with the grape-vine twig (should have tipped me off!) that it was attached to.
I found the "grower"/seller had just taken several small seedlings with two roots each, centered them together and then tied the separate plants into what "looked" like a large clump. He had even covered the center growth 'eyes' completely with nylon thread - needless to say, even after sending some to a local greenhouse to try and save, I lost all of the plants.
Will not purchase from him again - He gave me his card so I will remember him at the next show!
I am very optimistic that you will have a nice 'crop' of ghosty's soon - you are showing how labor intensive these little guys are! Thanks for the step-by-step pics of your process - very cool.
Steve

[Alla]

Update on ghosties- 2.5 months out of flask

They now reside in my main vivarium. I lost about 1/3 of them but remaining seem to be surviving ( knocks on wood). I mounted some and some are just living on terrarium background.

~Alla

[naoki]

Steve, it sounds similar to ones from Oak Hill Gardens. I was expecting a bunch of small ones (well, mine was pretty cheap), so I wasn't disappointed. But, I can see that it would be a surprise if you didn't expect it. I think that Alla and other people use live Spanish moss because of this article:
http://www.aos.org/AM/Images/pdf/GhostOrchidSidebar.pdf

Alla, I'm curious if you can see their growth. Mine stayed like that without much growth (maybe 2-3 mm total growth in a few of them) for 11 months, and the last one finally died a couple weeks ago. But yours look healthier than what I started with. I'm looking forward to hearing about your progress!

Do you have some info about your condition (min max temp and relative humidity)?

[Alla]

Naoki,

I used spanish moss because I saw quite a few people using it when I was doing my research. From my experience, I dont really see much difference with or without it. Though I certanly noticed spanish moss doesnt seem to like to be fertilized lol. I notice that baby ghosties dry out quite fast as I do have 1 computer fan going in my vivarium ( 36X18X36) though it is not blowing directly at the orchids and is in complete opposite side of the vivarium where my maxillarias and onsidium is.
In 2.5 months, they did not grow much though I think they do look slightly bigger than just out of the flask.
As for the growing conditions, here is a link to my thread where I built my Exo terra setup:
Exo Terra terrarium growing

They grow close to the water feature I have at the bottom of the setup with the waterfall, I did not measure humidity directly at the spot but overall terrarium humidity is between 60 to 80%. I have HO T5 lights there, ghosties are about 2 feet from the light.I used to do a weak fertilizer once a week but I think some died from the fertilizer so I do it every other week now. Also every other week I spray entire vivarium with a weak physan solution- seems to prevent molds rather well considering I have only 1 fan going at the moment and my misting system mists with RO water 3 times a day for 2 minutes.

Hope this helps.

~Alla

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[gnathaniel]

Nice going, Alla, they look good so far!

Similar to what ovanoshio said above, another possible (purely speculative) reason to use Tillandsia usneoides aka Spanish Moss with these is that many Tillandsias are known to fix atmospheric N via bacterial symbiosis. A few orchids have been shown to form similar associations, so it may be that growing these together allows the orchid to pick up useful symbiotes or minerals/nutrients from the other plant.

[Alla]

On a side note, a while back I got a mature ghost orchid and I placed it into the same vivarium as my ghost babies. For a while there I thought it was on a decline- couple of root tips started shriveling. I just moved it close to the water basin at the bottom and kept it misted twice a day. And look what I saw a couple of days ago- New Growth coming! I feel like dancing to be honest Now to hope it blooms one day.. I can dream, right ?

[Lia23]

Originally Posted by Alla

On a side note, a while back I got a mature ghost orchid and I placed it into the same vivarium as my ghost babies. For a while there I thought it was on a decline- couple of root tips started shriveling. I just moved it close to the water basin at the bottom and kept it misted twice a day. And look what I saw a couple of days ago- New Growth coming! I feel like dancing to be honest Now to hope it blooms one day.. I can dream, right ?

How is your ghost orchids growing?