Baby dendrobium kingianum; need advice about Winter dry out
Hello. I have a baby dendrobium kingianum I bought about 3 months ago. I have read about the "Winter drying out" procedure in order to get blooms in the Spring. I am wondering if my dendrobium kingianum is too small for the drying out process. I don’t like the idea of not watering it when the roots have just started growing and I believe I have two new canes (picture attached).
Any advice sure would be helpful. Thanks in advance.
I don't stop watering Den kingianum at all, and they bloom just fine in the spring. Of course I water less in winter... things don't dry out as fast, and especially I want things fairly dry by evening when it is cold. But certainly for the little one... water and feed. It needs to grow!
Yes, any orchid making active growth needs regular watering. Seedlings or small offsets often behave differently from mature plants. Small plants are far less tolerant of drying out than larger plants.
Many people grow Dendrobium kingianum outside in coastal California; it gets winter rain and does fine. The issue for D. kingianum is not that it needs to be dry, but that it likes to be very cool and bright in the winter.
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I know this is an older post, but I acquired some D. kingianum starts last fall. I put mine in soil/bark and perlite. Covered the "soil", and plant roots with granite stones. By February, I had flowers on two starts...I watered it regularly and had it under warm and cool fluorescents in the basement. As weather got up above freezing this Spring I returned it to outside...It had and has grown from six starts to 16 pseudobulbs. It should Flower again!