Laelia Speciosa Advice Needed

[escualida]

Hi all,

I’m about to receive a flask of Laelia Speciosa seedlings and I’m extremely excited about it but wanted to make sure I give them the best care possible. I’m finding it difficult to find consistent information online so I’m hoping you all can help me out.

This might be a dumb question but, is this plant considered rupicolous?

What would be the best medium to use straight out of the flask?

I have a covered growing tray that I can put them in, is this sufficient?

Any other advice for how to make sure they survive would be amazing. Thank you in advance!

[SouthPark]

Could check out this link here: click here

[escualida]

This is super helpful, thank you. I’m hoping to hear from someone who grows these as to exactly what kind of medium they use.

[Shadeflower]

Hey Adrianna,
have you ever grown seedlings from a flask before?

It can be a bit hit and miss. I'd say my success rate so far has been 50%, not so much because I have changed my methods but some seedlings are stronger than others.
The roots on seedlings can be really fragile and if they rot away then it can take the seedling a year to produce new roots and a lot of them don't make it that long.

I'm sure I have made mistakes too because it is hard to judge how much to water them that they don't stay waterlogged or dry out too much.

I lost every single dendrobium trantuanii I had and still annoyed about it but they arrived in a seethrough baggy that had a cm of water sitting in the bottom. Every single one had mushy roots and unfortunately I lost every single one. It can be quite demotivating when a setback like that hits you.

Just be prepared to lose some, the aim is to not lose all.

You should ideally try to leave them in the flask for as long as possible - I could not do that as I could already see roots going brown in my flasks so I had to repot them early.

I have tried a few different media, most like to use spaghnum moss straight out the flasks as the roots are so delicate they cannot be let to dry out too long.

If you can work with moss it can work great to keep a humid environment around the roots but it is easy to overwater.

The best success I have had was using a small dish, add 6 polystyrene packaging peanuts as a base, place a microfiber cleaning cloth available at any supermarket over the packing peanuts. Then place the seedlings onto the microfiber cloth and leave them exposed to the air to dry. Every day the cloth needs to be sprayed so a little water drips down into the bowl below (helps if it is seethrough) but never spray too much that the bowl gets filled with too much water.

The microfiber cloth should stay damp most of the time and the roots should always be exposed to air.

You can experiment with other substrates but avoid bark, that would be too dry long term.

[Fairorchids]

This is one of the true Laelias (from Mexico), so it is not a (formerly) rupicoluos Laelia.

Ordinarily, seedlings from flask should be given lower light, higher temperature & higher humidity, than you would for an adult plant of the same species. You can download my suggested care here:
Fair Orchids

However, this species is known for being drought resistant. Thus, these seedlings might need a little less than the constant high humidity I normally recommend.

[Maryanne]

Hello Adriana:

I have a small L. speciosa, but did not grow from a flask. I purchased it at an orchid show a couple of years ago. I did a lot of research on line, read the "Baker" sheet on it and found a Mexican paper on Laelias. I took the growing advice and habitat description seriously. I grow it mounted on hard wood with a small pad of sphagnum. It's barely watered at all in the winter and is in almost full sun in my cool greenhouse (temps in winter dip to low 40sF), In warmer, sunnier weather it's given a little more water and dilute fertilizer. For summer it's outside only shaded from noon sun, gets lot of water and seems to enjoy rain - I can see it expand. Although, it's a slow grower compared to other orchids. Still has not bloomed, but it's still tiny.
Good luck and happy growing.
Maryanne in western Massachusetts