Your plant is flowering size. With a little good care it should bloom for you in a month or two.
Where it comes from in India it is dry and without rain through the winter. One of the hardest parts of orchid growing for many people is learning not to water things when they should not be watered. A lot of tropical areas have rain only during the summer.
The canes are without leaves, but not likely dead. They grow for a season, then drop their leaves in the fall. They are leafless through the winter. The old leafless canes remain on the plant for several years before dying. They turn brown and completely dry when they die. I never cut them off until this happens so I don't make a mistake and cut them off too early. I think it's unlikely Norman's would have sent a plant with truly dead stems. They would have cut them off.
Sometimes growers keep them warm and watered all winter. This way they look pretty, with leaves, when they are sold. But normally they are leafless in winter.
How cold is it outside? If it's not freezing right now, that will be a good place for it. I have had my Dens like this outside all winter, except on the three nights we got near freezing. And tonight, when we will again get near freezing. My aphyllum just might be starting to make buds. I see a little purple bulge at one of the nodes.
Fertilizer is only during the growing season. If you fertilize it during dormancy, or too late in the summer, it might not bloom the next spring.
Edit: This group of orchids with long canes, winter rest, and spring flowers, is called the "nobile" group, after Dendrobium nobile. There are a lot of hybrids among species in this group.
Last edited by estación seca; 02-21-2018 at 12:23 AM..
|