Galeandra Greenwoodiana

[vanda2020]

I bought a Gal. Greenwoodiana from Fred Clarke, Sunset Valley Orchids this year, and it finally doubled in size and bloomed. It blasted the first buds. This is a successive bloomer, so more buds came along on the same spike. It grows on a cork mount in a semi-arid region in West Texas under an oak tree. Sun morning and late afternoon. Hot, hot summers with heavy rain in August and September. The flowers have a rose like smell. You can smell them when you put your nose right up to the flower.

[Roberta]

Beautiful!

[apfire]

I find the way you grow your Galeandra on a mount interesting. I grow mine in a pot with coconut chunks and keep it moist. I was even considering growing it in the PET method for larger growth like my catasetums. Your Galeandra looks very good.

[orchidman77]

This is beautiful! I'm kicking myself that I didn't add this to my list when Fred's Catasetum list came out...I grew a Galeandra years ago and simply loved the reblooming habit and rose fragrance; it's really lovely.

David

[Jinh]

I didn’t find that mine smelled like roses. Just faintly sweet, but I couldn’t really place it. Kind of like candy though.

How often were you having to water having it mounted?

I’m also in Texas, but the DFW area. Normally all my catasetum types do well outdoors, but this year’s heat wave and uncharacteristic low humidity was really causing them all to struggle. I ended up bringing them all indoors into a tent.

The first bloom of my Galeandra only produced 3 flowers, but I was pleasantly surprised when it had a second flush of flowers, this time 7.

[isurus79]

Very cool!

[vanda2020]

I water my mounted catesetums outside in the summer morning, sometimes afternoon if 100 degrees or more, and night. The potted ones once a day to twice if really high heat. I like growing them mounted here in West Texas, so I may convert more of my catesetums to mounts with spag. I water with low fert in RO water. The one fertilizer they really enjoy is organic liquid tomato fertilizer by Espoma. This fert contains chicken dung, humic acids, and a proprietary set of beneficial microbes along with bone meal and fish. A test I want to do on pulled side bulbs is can they take a higher TDS water like tap and be watered with a household hose. Vanda can actually be watered with West Texas water at 550ppm TDS. Yes, this water will eat enamel off teeth. Old timers here will still drink the water out of the tap. When we first moved here, we were told not to drink the water if you value your teeth. We use only RO water for drinking. In Florida, vanda growers use well water with very high TDS. Something I will try in the future is spraying with a hose in the summer using tap, but only on one test plant.

[estación seca]

Vandas, Cattleyas, Phals, most Dens, Cymbidiums and Catasetinae do fine in metro Phoenix with water having TDS 600-1200, so long as they're watered enough.