This year's bloom. I repotted it in spring 2013. The roots were really fragile (easy to snap). I contacted Mauro (who doesn't post here any more, but he is a master of growing these), and came up with something similar to his potting method. 1 layer of medium size lava rock, 5-10mm of sphag, then chick-pea sized lava rock:sphag= 1:1 as the main mix. I reduced the fertilizer strength to 10-20ppm N. It seems to be working ok. The size of plants is more than twice as big as the last spring. Also, the flower was sequentially opening, and only 1 flower was open at a time. But this year, the flowering sequence progressed quickly, so all flowers were open simultaneously.
Cattleya (Laelia) alvaroana on Flickr
Cattleya (Laelia) alvaroana plant on Flickr
The photo from last year is in 2.25" tall pot, and it is in 3" Rand's air cone pot this year as the size reference.
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