Growing YOUNG Cattleyas 🌱🌸 - new trends, innovative practices and best practices a

[My Green Pets]

I have lots of seedlings growing in a variety of media and containers right now, have a look: Cattleya seedlings up close ? Be careful what you spray on your flowers ? 7 August 2021 - YouTube

[isurus79]

Originally Posted by My Green Pets

I have lots of seedlings growing in a variety of media and containers right now, have a look: Cattleya seedlings up close ? Be careful what you spray on your flowers ? 7 August 2021 - YouTube

That poor maxima!! 🤣😂

[SADE2020]

Originally Posted by My Green Pets

I have lots of seedlings growing in a variety of media and containers right now, have a look: Cattleya seedlings up close ? Be careful what you spray on your flowers ? 7 August 2021 - YouTube

Nice video and super cool seedling. The patient you'll have is perhaps the most amazing fact…

I follow you on IG so I am well aware of the items you post!

Anyway, so far so good. What's your favorite and more efficient method since you are using a few options?

---------- Post added at 01:45 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:31 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Shadeflower

Nice catts there Sade.

I will just address this question. lecca is really good at not absorbing too much water and releasing it slowly and evenly. But lecca will suck moisture from its surroundings, if lecca gets too dry it literally sucks the moisture out of roots. You won't see the damage but when this happens roots tend to stop growing because they've been damaged by getting dried excessively. They can generally tolerate drying but lecca dessicates roots even more.
So lecca by itself can work if you constantly keep it from drying out but that is pretty much S/H

Thank you. Really interesting.

So, when you mix lecca with organic? What's the basis?

[SADE2020]

Originally Posted by Abe1997

Very interesting post, can’t wait to hear from other members. I have a couple of long running experiments. I think a general issue I ran into early in my growing experience, and one I see replicated fairly often is taking water and culture advice for adult plants and applying it to younger Cattleya. I have found that all Cattleya, especially younger seedlings benefit from wetter environments than traditionally recommended. I would like to qualify all the following information with the fact that I grow in Redlands Florida, aka south Florida south west of Miami.

Maybe you can share some pics... ?!?!

[SADE2020]

Bumping this thread up with this new kid in-da-house, no young though.

Cattleya Chawewan Sunset 🌇

I've reppoted in 12-15cm Bark, Carbon, and Perlite. The whole bottom is Lecca.

Let see how it goes!!!

[Roberta]

This one can teach the babies what they need to do when they grow up!

[SADE2020]

Originally Posted by My Green Pets

I have lots of seedlings growing in a variety of media and containers right now, have a look: Cattleya seedlings up close ? Be careful what you spray on your flowers ? 7 August 2021 - YouTube

MGP
I want to know how this seedlings are developing and found your recent update video. I dropped a question in comments...

Do you water the non medium Catts seedlings everyday ?

Thks

[estación seca]

I have grown several large Catts in LECA in standard pots, as well as S/H. It works very well. They aren't supposed to go completely dry. LECA provides large spaces between particles so even with frequent watering there will be plenty of air at the roots.

The only problems I have with LECA are much of it floats, and the very spherical particle brands (Hydroton) don't pack into the pot as well as more irregular particle brands, which I can no longer get locally.

Layering medium in a pot isn't generally a good idea. Water will get trapped at interfaces and the layer above the interface stays wetter than it would otherwise be. The layering method used for Catasetinae is for a very specialized group of orchids and I wouldn't suggest it for other kinds. The layer of LECA at the bottom of the pot you showed could be eliminated if you used a shorter pot and made sure the drain holes at the bottom were open to air circulation.

The 200 year old notion of putting a layer of rocks or broken pots at the bottom of a flower pot has been shown to be wrong; it prevents drainage, not promotes drainage. The best drainage in a container with a hole at the bottom comes from having a uniform medium mix, that has plenty of air spaces when dry, throughout the container.

[SADE2020]

Hi ES,

Thanks for the details. After this report, I hear you mention that there is no need for a bottom drainage with rock, gravel, or layers of lecca and I take it into consideration.

That Catt had done horrible during the winter, but I am waiting to see new growth to convert it to SH.

Cheers