Favorite Orchid Foliage

[Kruger]

What is your favorite orchid foliage? I like Laelia Purpurata's long leaves and long sheaths. They aren't the prettiest or showiest, but I just love the look of them. They are also my #1 favorite flower, but I still like the foliage as well.

[WaterWitchin]

My personal favorite orchid foliage is the kind that's pristine, and has no grasshopper bites, black spots, or crinkles. It can happen. Just not for me most of the time.

[Kruger]

Originally Posted by WaterWitchin

My personal favorite orchid foliage is the kind that's pristine, and has no grasshopper bites, black spots, or crinkles. It can happen. Just not for me most of the time.

Oncidiums with their thin leaves would really suit what you are looking for

[DirtyCoconuts]

I have a huge NOID onc. that is like a grass it is so long and wavy. When there are no spikes it reminds me of sawgrass

Brassa bloom by J Solo, on Flickr


I also love encylias and their long tendrils and catesetums have some great leaves too. The mottled paph leaves are cool to. They look like digital camouflage

And of course....my jewels. They have the BEST leaves.

[Subrosa]

Goodyera pubescens. I spotted this one yesterday looking for something else. It doesn't look too bad for having just experienced a week of night time temps I the high teens / low 20s!

[SaraJean]

If we are JUST talking about leaves (sorry little cucumber orchid dude, unless the pickles count as leaves, idk) I would have to say that it’s a toss up between my:

-Maxillaria pseudoreichenheimiana (glorious spots)
-Lepanthes calodictyon (velvety tessellated leaves)
-Habenaria carnea (rosy copper leaves with light blush spots)
-Macodes petola (metallic lighting strikes!!)


And ones I don’t have and would give my right arm to be able to grow:

-Any one of those bonnet flowered big leaf Pleuros like the Pleurothallis marthae, teaguei, or gargantua (big, broad, tropical looking, beautiful leaves. Too bad the plants themselves aren’t really tropical...)
-the Pleurothallis dodsonii (strange but awesome wart covered leaves)

[Chemtiger]

Originally Posted by SaraJean

If we are JUST talking about leaves (sorry little cucumber orchid dude, unless the pickles count as leaves, idk)

But yes! The Dendrobium cucumerinum’s “pickles” are the leaves! I love them so much that I had to get two!

Also, but I have no clue as far as their care, but I’d love to maybe try, would be a Vanda with terete leaves, like the Vanda/Papilionanthe ‘Miss Joaquim’, I love the almost succulent-looking leaves that they have. The flowers are pretty too, or so I hear! My orchids don’t flower much for me, so I rely on the pics from y’all!

[Roberta]

Originally Posted by Chemtiger

Also, but I have no clue as far as their care, but I’d love to maybe try, would be a Vanda with terete leaves, like the Vanda/Papilionanthe ‘Miss Joaquim’, I love the almost succulent-looking leaves that they have. The flowers are pretty too, or so I hear! My orchids don’t flower much for me, so I rely on the pics from y’all!

If your orchids aren't blooming for you after a year or so, can you increase the light they get? Pailionanthe especially needs high light. I think your outdoor temperatures (at least most of the year) should be fine for it. (They can even tolerate the occasional cool night if kept dry... I don't have that one, but I have seen it grown outdoors in southern California - where it does get cool in winter - so it should do fine for you on the Gulf coast)

[Chemtiger]

Originally Posted by Roberta

If your orchids aren't blooming for you after a year or so, can you increase the light they get? Pailionanthe especially needs high light. I think your outdoor temperatures (at least most of the year) should be fine for it. (They can even tolerate the occasional cool night if kept dry... I don't have that one, but I have seen it grown outdoors in southern California - where it does get cool in winter - so it should do fine for you on the Gulf coast)

Indeed! I have made a very large investment in some (okay, 36, but it’s for the ‘chids!!) tube-shaped T8 full-spectrum LEDs. They’re pretty cool grow lights, but not that “Hi, ma’am [sir, as the case may be], we’re from the DEA and your neighbors have told us about your ‘orchids’, can we have a look?” magenta-blue color that typical grow lights have. They’re a “warm-white” and very, very bright. I know life is about to change with my orchids, I could always get great vegetative growth, but unless they were my “outside orchids” I have a bit of trouble—at times—re-blooming, or getting consecutive years to bloom. I’m sort of hard on myself as far as how well they do, because I almost always have some blooming orchids, but I picked up a bunch of seedlings that I’m going to pot up in different media, to compare (as “rigorously” as I possibly can!) how they do in each type. Thank you for being so friendly, genuine, and helpful, it really means a lot. I’m sort of self-deprecating, I keep forgetting that there’s not a font for that, nor for sarcasm.

[Subrosa]

Originally Posted by Chemtiger

Indeed! I have made a very large investment in some (okay, 36, but it’s for the ‘chids!!) tube-shaped T8 full-spectrum LEDs. They’re pretty cool grow lights, but not that “Hi, ma’am [sir, as the case may be], we’re from the DEA and your neighbors have told us about your ‘orchids’, can we have a look?” magenta-blue color that typical grow lights have. They’re a “warm-white” and very, very bright. I know life is about to change with my orchids, I could always get great vegetative growth, but unless they were my “outside orchids” I have a bit of trouble—at times—re-blooming, or getting consecutive years to bloom. I’m sort of hard on myself as far as how well they do, because I almost always have some blooming orchids, but I picked up a bunch of seedlings that I’m going to pot up in different media, to compare (as “rigorously” as I possibly can!) how they do in each type. Thank you for being so friendly, genuine, and helpful, it really means a lot. I’m sort of self-deprecating, I keep forgetting that there’s not a font for that, nor for sarcasm.

You can't beat the sun! I live in central PA, and all of my orchids are outdoor orchids. It's just that some of them take an almost 7 month vacation indoors! I just sold my only terete Vanda, a Papilionanda Pink Fairy. I was able to bloom it by keeping it outdoors in full sun, and on a sunny windowsill which also caught a decent amount of light from an LED setup I run for the winter.