Many a sheath, nary a bud.

[Gwenchanter]

I've been growing Cattleyas for about a year now, and I've flowered about 30 phalaenospsis this winter, but still none of my Cattleyas have bloomed.

I have lots of sheaths showing up but none have flowers inside them. I grow my Cattleyas on a south west facing porch in South Florida. I use Dynamite slow-release fertilizer pellets (the red bottle) as reccomended by a friend who grows huge specimen size cattleyas. I have tons of new psudobulbs and healthy new roots, but nary a bud.

I have been told that the problem could be not enough light, but I'm stuck as to how to provide them with more light. I think putting them in my screened-in pool area would be way too much light and the sun would probably burn them, and it's extremely hot out there, in the high 90's most summer days. It's cooler in the shade but they are not flowering in the shade so it's a loose loose situation.

If anyone has experience with this in South Florida or any other hot and humid place, please tell me what I should do!

[isurus79]

Any pics? If they need more light, the leaves will be dark green. If they are getting enough light then they will have a light green color and depending on the species, they might have some purple, red coloration. If your light is ok (ie. some direct sun for either the morning or afternoon periods), then you might have to abuse your plants a bit. The only way I can get some of my Catt types to bloom (like L. purpurata) is withhold water for a months or so after the new growth is done. Water enough to let the older bulbs shrivel significantly and the new ones shrivel just a little. Works for me!

[Gwenchanter]

Maybe I've been overwatering. I will try withholding water but it's hard to make myself stop. Here's a pic of a few of my cats in their growing environment. I would say they are a medium green not a bright grass green.

[isurus79]

The color looks fine. I would definitely recommend some bloom inducing stress after your next growth has fully matured.

[catwalker808]

Your plant looks healthy and large enough to bloom ... unless you have followed your friend who may be growing standard sized cats which need to get larger before blooming.
You may simply have plants that are not in season for blooming ... that is, they may be summer bloomers. If you started growing them a year ago, they were probably too young then and by the time they were ready, the season was long gone.
Your dry sheaths can be good or bad. The good is that some cats form sheaths which dry out and turn brown and just sit on top for months. But don't tear them off ... in time you will gradually feel or see a small hard bump, then an elongated bump, then finally the flower spike will emerge and bloom. This may be what is happening for you.
The bad news is that your plant just has a dried unsuccessful sheath.
I have been to Florida many times and I know that many growers use the hard pumice-like aliflor for potting material. It's hard to see in your photo, but if you are, then it drains very fast and dries out very quickly. With due respect to advice about cutting back on water, overwatering may not be your problem in that case.
When asking advice about your plants, it would be very useful in the future to provide as much info as you can ... especially names, since that can give better clues for blooming season and culture.

[isurus79]

You know, after looking at your picture again, I noticed that I dont see any sheaths. Rather I see spent flower spikes that have been cut. Those will never bloom again. Are you sure you have sheaths? To me it looks like your newest mature growths have already flowered. However, there is a half sized new growth at the bottom/middle of the picture. When that matures you should see a new flower spike when its in season (like catwalker808 said).

[Gwenchanter]

see next post

[Gwenchanter]

I probably shouldn't have posted that picture because it's about 6 months old but I had it available and it does show the average color of my plants. When I bought that plant it was in bloom so yes there are remnants of the previous bloom. I have not been able to rebloom any of my plants though in the last year.

Here are some pictures in order from left to right:

1 & 2) Blc. Sangyang Ruby "Kuang Lung"
- has two developing empty sheaths

3) Potinara Free Spirit "Lea" - developed an empty sheath last year just after I bought it, and is now developing another empty one.

4) LC. Lake Cachuma "New Spring" - this small empty sheath developed a while ago but seems to have stoped devloping and has looked like this for about 3 months.

Yes my plants are all in a bark aliflor mix but I do water them every few days. A few of them have gotten rained on a few times accidentally.

[Brooke]

You have plenty of time to get blooms from those sheaths. I only worry about a non blooming sheath after I've had it for a year!

Brooke

[catwalker808]

Sounds like we were all trying to diagnose the patient but we were looking at the wrong x-rays. It's a good thing no one operated on the patient. The new growths and new sheaths on the new "x-rays" look like they still young. Just be patient and pardon the pun.