2016 to 2023 wait for bud: Paph. Avelon Druid
Yes. Seven years. And this is a bloom on old growth-- that is saying the older of the surviving leafsets. The whole story is that Avelon Druid (Paph. Avelon Mist X Paph. Druryi) nearly died when I got sick. It was all shriveled up and had only one leaf set. In a desperate move, I kept it as a kind of "water plant." Just watering it to the point that most orchid people would have said I would have killed it. Last year I put it in Semi Hydroponics after it did not look happy in regular medium (I had moved it from the water-bath idea). Oh it did shrivel up and start to die again after I placed it in regular medium. It just could not get enough. It needed Monsoon watering. So this seems to be a paph that wants "phrag" conditions. Wrong? Right?
Last week I started to see the smallest of buds on the end of a tiny stalk. I have no idea if it will survive or not. The flowers do tend to be somewhat small if I remember.
What I have learned: That one leafset had offsets. That flower pushed up through the very oldest leafset. In future years, the two will have flowers. It looks like they grow some, put up about 3 leaf sets, but the flower comes after one more smaller leaf set (a year later later), so it stacks up like a phalenopsis. (Anyone understand this?) Hopefully they will put off two leafsets themselves, but this could mean that the actual bloom cycle is rather long. -- I mean, really, I would expect a Rothschildianum to wait for 7 years between blooms. But from what I have read, if it makes it to about 10 years, it will become a pretty regular bloomer. 3 years to go! Has anyone else had extended bloom waits for the (PrimulinumX Glaucophyllum X Druryi) type hybrids?
Any way to speed this up?
Picture Paph. Avelon Druid (see the tiny flower stalk?)
Last edited by Optimist; 11-20-2023 at 09:36 PM..
Reason: My brain pushed the send button to early.
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