What is up with sheaths on Catleyas?

[Singingirl96]

Hello, I purchased 5 cattleyas last year and 3 of them flowered this year. The others put out several growths and out of them grew a sheath. These sheaths dried up and gave out no blooms.
Even one of the ones that flowered, there were 3 new growths, one flowered and the other two had sheaths that dried up.
So, what causes this? Should I expect any flowers from those sheath pseudobulbs??
Thank you.

PS. I grow these inside, by an east window sill. It gets cold during the night because they are close to the window. They also get full darkness at night. The humidity level isn't great... 30% - 40% currently but higher during the summer. They are in bark.

[Royal]

It's tough to give a "one size fits all" answer here. Sometimes culture can play a role, but some Catts will form sheaths as the growth matures only to bloom all in unison at the right season. Also, not quite blooming size growths may put out a "blind" sheath that never flowers. This is a good thing though, it means you're almost there.

[buckie]

Old brown (dried up) sheaths can still produce flowers, don"t cut or disturbed them, let them fall off in their own good time, sometimes buds form in these and because they have dried they become hard, you need to keep a eye on these if buds try to grow as they will find it hard to push out of these, a little helping hand will help at this time by carefully pulling apart the dried sheath, be crefull at this point not to pull the sheath apart to far, just enough to let the new buds out. As for the darkness....well in the wild where Catt's grow it does tend to get dark, not having a go at you, just try to think how these grow in the wild and treat your's the same way, this is hard if your climate isn't the same as in the wild so you have to try and make it as close as possible in your situation. Hope this is some help.

Warren

[Singingirl96]

Thank you for the response... I'll keep my fingers crossed that it will finally bloom!