Dendrobium nobile budding in September--questions about care

[CJ Green]

Hi folks,

I posted early in the summer about a den nobile that I bought in rather sad shape. I repotted it and put it outside for the summer. I don't have a lath shelter or anything so I just set it on my picnic table and moved it under the umbrella as needed to shade it from the worst of the sun. It seems to have done really well. The little 2-inch shoot is probably a foot long now. The huge keiki with the trimmed roots is still alive, but the roots never grew (although one of them turns greenish when I mist them). But the biggest news is that there are six buds on the youngest of the mature stalks, and one very large bud on the keiki (maybe another keiki??). In the photo on the right below you can see a tiny bud on the top and a bigger one on the side; the rest aren't visible.

This is my first den nobile and even though I've read up on care, I'm still confused about how to proceed at this point. I had the idea that den nobiles get a winter "rest" of cool temps, high sun, and little water so that they will flower. But if the buds have already started, do I still go with that plan? And if buds are starting to form in September, when do the flowers open? Also, how early can you tell whether the buds are keikis or flower buds?

Any advice from den nobile growers about winter care when there are buds on the stalks would be welcome.

Thanks!

ETA: I feel a little embarrassed about all that string in the photo! That keiki is just holding on by a thread and I kind of had to tie the whole thing together--it looks pretty awkward. I was really hoping the keiki would grow roots so I could pull it off and plant it.

[Roberta]

It's in active growth... flowers a bit out of season, but nature does what she wants. Keep watering. Once it blooms, later in the fall, you can reduce water somewhat and stop fertilizing, but let it recover from its trauma... whether it blooms or not next spring is less important than letting the plant return to health for the long haul.

[estación seca]

Congratulations on a great job!

Nobile dens are triggered to bloom by night temperature drops. Some ancestor species bloom later than Den. nobile. Hybrids often bloom twice per year if well-grown. Your night temperatures have probably been dropping as fall approaches.

Now you're an expert!

PS don't worry about the string.

[bil]

With Den nobile, I don't like taking off the keiki. I find that they take forever to establish. Far better is, once the roots are a couple of cm long, you cut the whole cane off the plant with the Keiki attached, and plant that.

[CJ Green]

Agreed--for this plant, I don't have the option to remove the keiki, because the roots had been trimmed (or maybe even chewed?) and there hasn't been any root growth for the keiki all summer. I think my best bet is just to leave it as is for now, although the keiki is really large and isn't very well attached to the cane. I'm also not sure how many roots that particular cane has--next time I repot I'll have to remember to take a good look. It's just kind of an eyesore.

[estación seca]

I posted my reply to the wrong thread. Your plant will be fine. I've removed what was here and put it in the correct thread.

[CJ Green]

Thanks! OK, I will keep watering it as usual and maybe lightly fertilizing it until it flowers and then stop fertilizing and cut way back on the water after the flowers are done.

Temps at night have turned cool here in Vermont; I pulled the plant indoors when it's been in the mid-40s, but since I had read that you can put a den nobile in the refrigerator, I've left it outside during 48- to 50-degree nights. I was planning to leave it outside as long as possible, which might just be another couple of weeks.

Do den nobile normally start to bud in late winter (February?) and flower in early spring?

[Roberta]

Originally Posted by CJ Green

Do den nobile normally start to bud in late winter (February?) and flower in early spring?

That's the typical pattern. But as was noted above, some hybrids may bloom twice, or at different times. As for keikis, I usually just leave them on. Another source of flowers... roots all over the place is just what these plants do... Let it do what it wants to do. But I'd rather have one big robust plant than a bunch of weak ones.

[CJ Green]

I'm not familiar with the horizontal method, but I think the plant should be OK as is for now. Maybe I've confused things by mentioning the keiki. It's very large and is attached to an old cane, which is cut off just above where the keiki is attached. The keiki itself had its roots trimmed off (all this happened before I got it). So if I separated that old cut-off cane with the keiki from the main plant, I'm not sure it would do well. But the plant as a whole is really healthy, with good root growth. So I think I should just keep it all together for now. Once the plant grows more and maybe sends up more canes, I might just remove that old cane with the rootless keiki--it seems unlikely to me that they would survive on their own.

---------- Post added at 12:14 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:08 PM ----------

As a sidenote, this is a really newbie problem, but I can't figure out how to reply to a particular post in a thread--or maybe the way the posts are displayed on my screen just aren't reflecting the thread accurately. Anyway, I apologize for any confusing placement of my replies. I appreciate everyone's comments!