I’ve been wanting to try my hand at growing a few Catasetinae for a long time, but until 4 years ago I didn’t have a bright enough spot for them (I had north-east facing windows, not they're south facing). My interest in them was rekindled over the fall/winter as I saw thread after thread of everybody’s Catasetinae in bloom and then I couldn’t resist any longer….
So I ordered two rather compact growing Cats:
*Clowesia Rebecca Northen
*Clowesetum Melana's Daughter (Cl. Rebecca Northen x Ctsm. Melana Davison).
I discovered that the latter is a recent Fred Clarke cross registered in 2018. Now I’m curious to ask the German nursery if their plants are imports from SVO, because it would make me really happy to have one of Fred Clarke’s plants!
I read the culture info on the SVO site. If I got it right: no watering until the roots are a few inches long. Grow in Cattleya light levels. Heavy watering and feeding. Start reducing watering when leaves start to yellow or by mid-November, stop watering when all leaves are gone or at start of January otherwise. Am I missing anything important?
Do you start with the heavy fertilizing immediately with the first watering of the year or bump it up gradually? And add it at every watering? The SVO sheet says to use a balanced full strength fertilizer. I assume they mean something like the 20-20-20 I use on my collection, but I have no idea what dosage ‘full strength’ corresponds to. I buy my fertilizer from a local orchid nursery and they indicate heavily diluted dosages for standard orchid culture (1g/L, which comes out to roughly 50ppm N).
Now I'm waiting for the weather to warm up so that the grower can ship my order. The 2 Cats aren't traveling alone, there are 3 other orchids keeping them company in the box.
Ordered my first ever Catasetinae- need culture advice
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