Need advice on rupicolous laelia culture

[kack]

I have recently acquired a couple of rupicolous laelias and understand their culture is unique, i.e. getting wet at night and needing warm, dry, bright days. Should I give water at night? How cold can they take? Should I pot in gravel or granite chips? All cultural advice welcome. Thanks

[isurus79]

Francisco Miranda is the person you want to talk to about this topic (Presentations mirandaorchids.com). He might be able to help you out with some advice.

Chaz Smith is also a specialist with this group and gave a great lecture to my local OS about rupi culture. I don't think he has a website, but if you want to send me a PM, I could ask him to send me his lecture slides.

[estación seca]

Also be aware there are rupicolous Laelias at higher elevations and lower elevations. Some get hot nights and some get cold nights. Some experience winter frost and others don't.

[naoki]

Originally Posted by kack

I have recently acquired a couple of rupicolous laelias and understand their culture is unique, i.e. getting wet at night and needing warm, dry, bright days. Should I give water at night? How cold can they take? Should I pot in gravel or granite chips? All cultural advice welcome. Thanks

I'm not an expert with those, but I do grow about 20 or so species ok. Most of them are in sphagnum moss based media. Single layer of 1cm diameter lava rock at the bottom, then 5mm layer of 100% sphagnum moss, then the main area is 1:1 of 5-10mm diameter lava rock: sphagnum moss. I got this method from Mauro Rosim a couple years ago. But some are growing in fine fir bark 100%. The sphag based media can stay moist longer, and they appear to grow a bit faster in the sphag. Especially the thinner leaved ones grow pretty quickly in sphag based media. But they don't seem to be particularly picky about the media. I think that people may be keeping them too dry. It dries out after about 4-5 days. I reduce the watering slightly in the winter.

Some species have really fragile roots, so I try not to disturb the pot.

Majority seems to be pretty tolerant with the temperature, too. Some of mine goes down to 55F in the winter. But the thick leaved ones don't seem to flower frequently under my condition, so I'm still missing something.

More light is probably good, but the thin leaved ones seem to flower with lower light, too.