no flower

[spdwslc]

I am living in a flat. I put my orchids at bay window. Phaleanophsis, Oncidium and Dendrobium has no trouble to bloom. But Cattleya and Paphiodilum cannot. Please help.

[Sharon]

Catts and Paphs are quite different in their requirements. I think more info is needed to be able to answer your question. What is the exposure? N-E-S-W?? How often do you water, fertilize (and with what)? How long have you had the catt and paph? Do they need to be repotted? My first thought about the catts would be, are they getting enough light? Are they of blooming size? Paphs don't need as much light so that shouldn't be the issue if they are with dens and the dens bloom. Of the ones you have bloomed, have you rebloomed them?

[Sandra Billeter]

Sharon asks the good questions but I have another. What type of Catts? Before we got our GH built, we grew indoors with grow lights. We were unable to re-bloom any of the Catts with the exception of the mini-Catts. After we got our GH, the biggest response was from the Catts and they are happily blooming. We are convinced it is the light factor.

Sandra in South Carolina

[spdwslc]

thanks for reply. I got an eastern exposure and a southern exposure. I have tried different position for Paph but they still can't bloom. For the Catts, one of them in fact can bloom each year. The rest, I don't even know the type because I bought the seedling from the market.

[Sharon]

I have experienced the same thing with moving from growing in my home to growing in a greenhouse. And when the orchids were in the house, they had a south east exposure so they would have had even more light than a straight eastern exposure. In MOST cases a lack of blooms is a light issue.

[Oscarman]

If you got them as seedlings, how long have you had them....perhaps they are too small/young and have not reached blooming size?

[spdwslc]

I am not sure about that. However, there have been many leads grown from the cultivar. Does it indicate it is mature enough to bloom?

[Sandra Billeter]

The number of leads doesn't relate to blooming. We bought some seedlings in 2001 that just bloomed for the first time last summer and this spring. On one particular Den, we kept calling the nursery where we bought it and they told us to be patient. It put out it's first spike last summer and there were 3 in bloom simultaneously and 2 more followed in succession and lasted into February. It now has 6 spikes and 3 of them are opening. Patience was rewarded!

Sandra in South Carolina

[Ray]

The paphs should be able to bloom fine if grown near the phal light level, and the catts should be OK near the oncids.

Sandra's question about the specific hybrids is a good one. Catts with a lot of Brassabola digbyana in them, for example, sometimes prefer a lot more light.

While we're bouncing more questions off of you - what frequency, formula and rate do you feed your plants?

[Tindomul]

Originally Posted by Ray

The paphs should be able to bloom fine if grown near the phal light level, and the catts should be OK near the oncids.

Really, I like that news. I was under the impression that paphs needed lots of sunlight. I don't know where I got that idea?