Brassia Rex sakata? Help!

[james mickelso]

I have a couple of Brassia Rex' and they are very easy to grow and flower. I have mine in a course bark/sponge rock/charcol media and water them when they feel dry. You can use a skewer but I prefer to lift the pot up and feel it's weight. Yellowing leaves can mean two things. One is when the leaf is getting old and giving up it's energy to feed the plant. Or shall we say it is older than the plant needs and the plant doesn't feed it anymore and it loses it's photosynthesizing ability. The second is more serious. The roots aren't able to absorb water because of rot and the leaves can't photosynthesize and then lose their color on the way to dying. People read where these plants like to be wet or watered a lot. They don't. These plants like to be moist but don't tolerate being wet constantly. They like to almost dry out before you water them again. They need to be kept less moist in winter or the pbulbs will rot. They should be a light green color. Not as light as catts but not medium or dark green. They need a fairly bright light. A little less than catts. When the new growth gets mature (as tall as the next older pbulb) then I switch to a bloom booster or a fertilizer with an N-P-K of 10-30-30 or similar. I use this every other or every third feeding at 1/4 strength. I fertilize my orchids every time I water but very lightly. Brassias don't like a high TDS or a lot of salt in their water. I use RO water from the machines outside of supermarkets. Around 30 cents a gallon. If you put them in too much light they burn easily (picture of burned leaf). They are very hardy and can take periods of high 30*f temps in winter for short periods at night but need to be kept dry if that low. You don't have to sweat having to water them at critical times. If they dry out for a couple days they will perk right back up when watered. Here are a couple pics of two of mine.