This Schomburgkia Thompsoniana came to live with me just about a year ago. It was delivered in the tiniest pot I've ever seen but appeared to be healthy. I promptly removed Ms. Schom from her confinement, mounted her to a piece of grapewood, and found her a nice sunny spot to live in. Her growth commenced almost immediately and she has grown and grown and grown since then. Each new cane grows fatter than the one before, and her most recent cane has got me a bit excited. It's almost twice as long as the others and it has a promising looking growth between the leaves on the end. Her other canes had these too, but they were much smaller and dried up within a week or so. See photos 1, 2 and 3.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if that extra long cane produces the first bloom? Actually, the plant is probably to immature to initiate bloom production, but I can always dream.
My smbna 'Firefly' is also growing with gusto. She had already overgrown her 5" pot when purchased in Jan. 2009. At the time, the temperatures were too cold to justify a repot so I just took care of her and began to gradually increase her exposure to sunlight. By April the weather had warmed and I divided her into two specimens and mounted both to pieces of grapewood. Both Firefly's are doing well but the one making the most progress receives a bit more sunshine and had established air roots prior to mounting. Basically she (the healthiest one) was the overgrowth, so her roots required less adjusting.
The butterfly adorned grapewood mount is home to the division who's roots were previously growing into potting media. It has grown many new roots and several ordinary looking pseudobulbs. Photos 4 & 5
The Firefly growing on the unadorned mount has also developed many new roots. The striking difference would be the pseudo develpment. This one has big fat pseudobulbs with nicely hydrated sheaths.
Photos 6, 7 & 8