This is, as you noted, a fairly temperature tolerant plant. Mine is placed outside around the end of April and brought back inside the house toward the end of September. As such, it is routinely subjected to day temperatures of 90+ degrees (although the average is somewhere in the neighborhood of 83 to 85 degrees), with correspondingly high humidity levels (average summer humidity here in my area of the midwest is around 80 to 85%, and it often gets closer to 100% during much of the summer). This is the plant's growth period, and it will appreciate lots of water and moderate amounts of fertilizer while actively growing. It will also appreciate light levels that bright, but without receiving any direct sunlight (a protected eastern or southern exposure location would be ideal). When new growths are still small (less than a couple of inches tall) in the early spring, try to avoid getting water in them as they're prone to rotting at this stage of their development. After they get larger and leaves begin to expand, however, you can go ahead and douse the plant with water regularly. All of my deciduous lycastes (of which aromatica is one) get watered every other day during the summer when it's hot out and they're growing quickly. In the fall, if you've done your job right, the new pseudobulbs will be turning hard and will be larger than the previous year's growths. When cooler temperatures arrive, you can start letting the plant go dry between waterings. The leaves will eventually begin to turn brown and yellow sometime over the late fall/early winter period (each of my plant's seems to have its own cycle for discarding leaves, but all of them are leafless by the time Christmas arrives), and after the plant's become leafless, you can start letting it go dry for long periods of time between very light waterings. My aromatica gets watered maybe once every four to six weeks between early December and mid February. Flower spikes will appear, along with new growths, in early spring from the most recent year's growths (the ones that just lost their leaves over the winter). Again, be very careful with how you water this species. The plant will appreciate more water while it's forming the flower spikes. But those new growths do not respond well to getting flooded with lots of water. One of the things you can do to help keep water from staying inside the new growths is provide strong air movement around the plant. While Lycaste aromatica is also leafless and producing flower spikes, it will also appreciate strong sunlight (direct sunshine in the winter, as opposed to what the plant likes in the summer, is beneficial and will not harm the plant provided the air is humidity of, with the help of a fan, constantly moving around the plant). This is probably one of the easiest Lycaste species to grow, and is usually very adaptable to different light and temperature levels. Just be sure that you respect its need for a winter rest period after the leaves fall. Good luck with your plant. I think you'll really enjoy the highly fragrant flowers once you've experienced them firsthand.
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Lycaste culture
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