Quote:
Originally Posted by Tindomul
Gorgeous!!! Just so brilliant! How would you compare this to growing S. cernua? That is if you have grown S. cernua before or currently. I have one and have been successful at it and might want to try yours out for a bit.
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I grow the two very differently. Soph. coccinea grows cool (It doesn't get very cold, but it never gets over 78 degrees, either). It gets wet every morning and dry every evening - in that way it's a lot like the way I grow cernua.
Mine is potted in a clay pot with an enlarged drain hole. The bottom third of the pot is chunks of styrofoam and the top two-thirds is NZ sphagnum. I water every morning with RO. I fertilize probably 2-3 times per week with very dilute Dyna-Gro.
Soph. coccinea isn't as hard to grow as it was 25 years ago (when I finally bloomed one back then, I had it tatooed on my arm...). Japanese growers have line bred these for many many generations now - at least in part for warmth tolerance. This one is certainly a rapid grower in less than ideal conditions.
I was surprised to see it blooming on summer growths - my guess is that it's because it never got hot over the summer. Usually, the summer growths are blind and you have to wait for winter to get flowers.
I grow in a 30 gallon aquarium. I use 4 60W equivalent compact fluorescent bulbs to light it. They are in a wooden hood that I built for the terrarium. The bottom of the hood is plexiglass, so any heat coming off the bulbs doesn't enter the tank. I have a fan at one end of the hood and holes drilled at the other to keep heat from building up inside it.
Inside the tank, I have a computer fan that blows upward onto the plexiglass to move air around. I run a Repti-fogger on a timer - 3 hours early in the morning, then a couple of times a day for 15 minutes. I use RO water in the fogger to prevent any problems with the mechanism.
I haven't needed to do any active cooling - the terrarium is in my basement, the lights are above plexiglass, and I use clay pots or mounts to keep the plants' roots cool.
I give the plants the appropriate light by mounting them on wires. I stick the wires into styrofoam at the base of the terrarium. I have a layer of coconut husk fiber (coir) covered with live moss over the styrofoam, so it's relatively attractive.
Before it came into bloom, the tops of the leaves of the Sophronitis were touching the plexiglass (approx 1" from the center of a light bulb). Since it has come into bloom, I've lowered it a little so that the flowers aren't rubbing against the plexiglass.
Sophronitis coccinea
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