NoID Vanda vase culture. Need help with keeping it alive.

[shushu45]

Last week I had to go take a drug test for my clinicals. That was a two hour trip to the nearest Lab Corp. So to make the trip a useful one I stoped at Gaient Eagle for some groceries. I passed by the flurest there and the first thing I saw was a group of Vandas. I grabbed on imidetly. I paid for it and my supplies and came home. Now I started to look up info on Vandas and this vase culture. But I can hardly find any info on it. I found a lot of Vanda info but hardly any on vase culture. Either I'm not looking in the right places or I'm missing something when I look at sites.

What I want to know is how do I take care of this Vanda as I possibly can??
Right now I'm following the directions it came with. Water once a week by filling the vase with water. Then wait a half hour to an hour. Dump the water and mist it the rest of the week one to two times daily.

I'll post pix later of it.

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

What kind of Vanda is it?

You don't have to use vase culture as a viable technique to grow a Vanda properly. You can grow them potted, and they will grow and bloom just fine.

[jcec1]

I have grown my vandas in vases for years in the way that you are growing yours. I feed them every second watering though. It works for me, and that's the instructions too, so I would carry on as you are...why mend what's not broken?

[Vanda lover]

I grow mine exactly the same way too. They thrive in vase culture. I feed mine weakly weekly and try to give them as much light as I can without burning them. In the summer I wrapped foil around the vase to keep it from overheating in the sun.

[WhiteRabbit]

http://www.orchidboard.com/community...ead.php?t=5826

[Bud]

Since you are in Brockway,PA....we practically have the same grow zone.
I grow some of my Vandas in vase culture, some of them mounted and four of the large ones are potted once they have established themselves in my environment.
I have a 2 gallon electric humidifier with a fan attached on the top. Temperatures 80F in the day and 60F at night. I put them on a south facing window in the winter and gradually adapt them outdoors in the summer so as not to burn the leaves....I feed them weekly weakly fertilizer all year round.
Notice the roots if it is very light and dry then spritz it to turn green again; that is if you got the chance.
They like to be watered twice a day in the summer and every other day in winter.

[shushu45]

Here r the pix I promised.

And thank you all for responding.

[judith_arquette]

Wow, what a gorgeous flower...congrats on the new addition

[Orchid Whisperer]

That plant has some good roots, keeping it going should not be a problem. Your container looks fine too.

What I did to start out with my Vandas in vases is to clip off the little plastic basket (use scissors or kitchen shears to cut it up, remove from the roots).

You want to have the plant with the leaves out of the vase, roots in the vase. To do this, you may want to anchor the plant to some sort of stake; a dowel might work ok, better if you can use something that won't rot or rust (like plastic). Tie the plant below the leaves to your stake (you can use more anchors/ties if needed to keep the plant vertical).

Water 2 or 3 times a week, soaking the roots for maybe 1/2 hour; sometimes it is more, sometimes less. I usually add a small pinch of fertilizer to the water (use whatever water soluble fertilizer you normally use; providing supplemental Ca and Mg is also a good thing). After your 1/2 hour soak, discard the water, leave the damp roots in the damp, but otherwise empty, vase.

After a month or so, you will see that some roots are fattening up with water, some will start growing and making new root tips. Others will remain brown. Take a little time with some flame-sterilized shears and clip of the dead/brown roots. Leave it dry for a couple days after the "haircut", then resume watering/soaking as usual.

I started out with a vase very much like yours. When it was time to move plants outdoors last summer, I switched to putting the plants in plastic seltzer bottles, top cut off, small holes cut in the bottom & sides, a few rocks in the bottom to give some weight so the bottle would not tip over. I made the switch because I was concerned about glass breaking outdoors if the plant was tipped off of my plant bench. I just dip the plastic bottle into a container that is slightly deeper and wider when I do the soak.

Over the course of the year, my containers filled with roots. I found that with few exceptions, I could get rid of the stakes, the roots now held the plants at the correct position in the vase. An advantage of growing vandaceous orchids this way is that the roots are more manageable and the plants are easier to display (If you use seltzer bottles like I did, just drop your plastic bottle into a tall opaque vase for display). The plants don't seem to mind having their roots confined in the vase.

[Vanda lover]

It sure is a beauty! I find once or twice a week works just fine for soaking them and mist them in between.