Dinema Polybulbon

[estación seca]

You can ask as many questions as you like!

I think there are videos on the Kool Log Web site showing how to mount plants. You don't need a lot of moss because the water weeping out of the Kool Log keeps the roots moist.

Sometimes if the tiny little roots of a small plant are buried deeply in a giant wad of moss, they never dry out. I don't think that's your problem, especially since you said you tend to underwater.

Cattleya alliance plants like Encyclias generally grow new roots only around the time of a new growth. (There are exceptions.) The new roots will grow where they are happiest, whether on top of the moss, just beneath the surface or deeper. So I wouldn't uncover the roots that are there. I would keep the plant moister and give it fertilizer. I fertilize my mounted plants with a solution of about 20-40 parts per million of nitrogen. You can figure out the dilution from the number on the fertilizer label and the calculator on the First Rays Web site

here.

[wintergirl]

If the plant likes to dry between waterings I would continue the way you have been. The Kool-log will keep that moss/roots soaking wet all the time if it is filled all the time.

[Optimist]

I do not know much about this species, but I agree that looking up the climate, rainfall, heat and so on of the originating location (s) of your orchid actually is vastly important to caring for them. As a ex-plant killer, I know that once I stopped treating them like house plants, with one size fits all care, and started to treat them like plants taken from somewhere else, with specific needs, they began to give me what I wanted.

[gnathaniel]

Dinema polybulbon is the current accepted name. I don't grow this species especially well but it does grow and bloom for me, it's a great little mini. I give it a lot of water with only slight/brief drying, moderate to bright light, and temps ranging 32-105 F though it seems to grow fastest with 50-85 F days and 40-65 F nights. It does well with good air at the roots and appreciates high humidity. I've found it slow to get going from small divisions but picks up speed once there are a dozen or more growths. Hope this helps!

[u bada]

I grew that one years ago and it grew well for me in a growing orchidarium case... regular watering and high humidity, grew pretty crazy but it was a big clump. I recall taking a cutting and it sat there for a long time. Some of the matt forming type orchids appear to not do anything til they get to develop more pbulbs then they take off.

I know it's not great news if this is the case for it, but if it makes you feel better I have quite a number of them (an epigenium, a couple bulbos, at least a couple epis, far too many dens etc.) that have literally not done anything for what seems like years. I'm a classic underwaterer and my humidity is almost always too low... I'm sure if i stuck them in a growing case they'd eventually start growing, I'm just run out of room in them... oy! At least new orleans is pretty humid year round?