Dendrobium stardust Firebird reblooming question - Page 4 - Orchid Board

Optimist · #31 05-22-2014, 07:51 PM

october or november outdoors depending on your conditions. I took them inside when it got colder than they needed. I just saw a post from the smartest orchid keeper in the world, who seems to have a mini wine chiller with a variable tempreture thermostat. I was thinking, you can both chill your wine and get your orchids to bloom. Great idea!

NYCorchidman · #32 05-23-2014, 12:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Miss Flower

I have a very easy solution to the 4 foot dilemma...buy a bigger wine fridge

Chiyomi is the yellow version. that is next on my radar

But first the house and the greenhouse has to be built. I promised myself a break from orchid acquisition until it's done

In other news: Any clues on how to bloom Brassavola jiminy cricket and a mini cattleya?

Most likely, increase the light and da da!!! especially Brassavola. cook them in the sun and you will be happy to see the results. don't think mini catts need as much, definitely not direct sun, but still higher light than most orchids.

Miss Flower · #33 05-23-2014, 07:13 PM

allrighty! will do

thx again!

RosieC · #34 05-24-2014, 03:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NYCorchidman

Rosie, do you get abundant bloom on yours like the one posted here?

Regardless of the answer, your absolute minimum of 15C is actually about the highest end of many of these "nobile type" hybrids and they will flower fine.
Of course, a bit lower temp will definitely bring out the quaruntted great results.

I just looked up all the species used in the making of dendrobium stardust, and one species named moniliforme has a long bloom season spanning winter into summer.
It could be that your plant somehow got more of the warmth tolerant genes from this species.

Mine are only tiny keikis so less blooms on the tiny plants, but plenty for the size of plant.

I used to keep it cool and dry and the plants just suffered and never flowered. Basically I've found that if they loose their leaves over the winter they struggle to recover over the next growing season and just get worse year on year. I lost the parent of my keikis to a combination of that, then an already sick plant got mites.

This year I kept them warm and cut out fertiliser but not water and for the first time they've come through the winter looking healthy and having flowered. They have also got growing well as the growing season has started (far better than when I kept them cool and dry) and are looking like they will put on good growth ove this summer.

As you say the parentage is not just nobile and both I and someone else, from the UK, I talked to about this hybrid a few years ago have found that nobile care does not really work for it. She told me that a few years ago and I stubbornly stuck to nobile type care... now I regret it having lost the parent plant.

MattWoelfsen · #35 05-24-2014, 07:50 AM

What kind of mini-Cattleya are you asking about? If it is a Laelia Rupicolous type Cattleya, these usually flower at the end of summer. At this time of year, they should be growing new pseudo-bulbs.

Lovely and flourishing Dendrobium! I really like your idea of providing winter chill to your plant. Excellent tip.

NYCorchidman · #36 05-24-2014, 11:29 PM

hmmmm strange.

Deciduous dendrobiums are supposed to drop leaves, although hybrids may or may not lose leaves. When given enough cooling, even hybrids lose leaves.

Mines (nobile hybirds, unicum hybrids drop leaves even on my windowsill) do not lose leaves, and I actually just manually strip them all off as I hate seeing old leaves getting in the way of flowers.

RosieC · #37 05-25-2014, 12:07 PM

In my experience with Stardust it will loose it's leaves if kept dry and cool... but then it does really badly the next year and struggles to grow again, so it has less leaves on smaller canes by the end of the next growing season. It losses those again and the year after grows less on even smaller canes.

For my parent plant by September last year it had no growths that year from the base of the plant, and only tiny patches of green (each no more than 1cm high) which were keikis trying their best to grow. Yes it had mites as well by then, but when I've looked back at my records I realise it was in very poor condition already before those appeared (probably why they could take hold).

I've had some keikis of it which accidentally got very different treatment. I had been advised to not give a winter rest the first year while they were tiny. So I kept them warm and watered as usual (when they dried out). I then sort of forgot about them, and they stayed in the house for the next couple of winters as well getting watered with all the plants that don't get a winter rest.

So this winter when I decided to stop fertiliser in August I still kept them in the house and still watered every couple of days with rain water, so the lack of fertiliser was the only change they got... and I got flowers on several of the keikis... in fact I've just spotted some more buds forming on one that hadn't flowered. Then in early Feb they started putting in strong growth and I started fertilising again and they have now probably put on more growth than the parent did in a whole growing season following a dry cool rest.

So why... all I can think is that one of the other parents is having a strong influence