Monnierara millenium magic witchcraft

[Roberta]

What fishmom said! And maybe also keep your hands behind your back when you look at your plant. Don't succumb to the temptation! It could be another month to 6 weeks before it is ready for water.

[Clawhammer]

Congrats!

Wait. Then wait some more.

[Maru777]

Thank you everyone for the advice! It is really helping me with this new orchid. It’s growing really nicely so far. It did get a bit of water on it though because we had some rain and it splashed a little bit on it but it’s not too much and it’s so hot I think it will dry almost completely by evening. Now I wish I bought more new ones to experiment with to keep me sane during these times. I hope everyone is safe and healthy!

[DirtyCoconuts]

awesome--- mine is slowly waking as well

Untitled by J Solo, on Flickr

cant beat a $5 adventure

[Maru777]

Originally Posted by DirtyCoconuts

awesome--- mine is slowly waking as well

cant beat a $5 adventure

Indeed not. I wish I embarked on a few more adventures. The vanilla is growing out of control and so is the jewel orchid. This is the runt of my experimental litter from Tamiami. Yours looks awesome, by the way!

[JScott]

I only have to Catasetum type orchids. I grow them in bark. When the new growths are a couple inches tall, I start watering very sparingly. I water once, and then wait until it is bone dry to water again. I know this is earlier than is typically recommended to begin watering, but my plants grow like crazy and get bigger every year with more flowers every year. I know I'm only one guy with only two plants, but that has been my method, and it has worked for me. Maybe the proper time to start watering them isn't such an exact science after all.

[DirtyCoconuts]

I think it has more to do with environment and culture than much else. I water all year but I have a strangely humid climate with a really open medium and they bloom and grow

I think Roberta is really on point about how they are really adaptive, orchids that is

[Maru777]

The saga continues The little thing got watered whether I wanted it to or not because some of my shelves were falling apart - were rusting. So, I moved all my orchids off this shelf temporarily to apply an anti-rust coat of paint on the stand. However, I moved them close to the mosquito screen and they all got a soak overnight as we got a ton of rain. Sigh. Anyway, closer to when it actually needs water? The old bulb is shriveling more and more but I think it did a good job supporting this new growth. Bit worried about the moss being soaking wet now. It will be back in its former place so no more rain on it but not sure what I can do about the crazy amount of water it just got I don’t want to mess with the moss so the roots don’t get damaged but if I have to I do have new moss I could use. Any advice? thank you!

[Roberta]

Don't worry about the stray rain. Just don't add any more water, let it dry out. Definitely don't disturb it. I imagine in nature there is also the occasional "mis-timed" rain.

[SouthPark]

Originally Posted by Maru777

Bit worried about the moss being soaking wet now.

That's when you have to watch your catasetum leaves like a hawk - because overly wet for relatively long periods of time can indeed drown existing roots (if there are any) and/or new roots too. So if there becomes any abrupt yellowing of leaves at a fast rate seen ------ then the way to address that is to unpot and spread the media and roots out a bit to allow for a bit of a dry out (before packing the media and roots back into the pot again later).