Growing Cymbidiums in the house

[silken]

I'm not sure about your fall blooming Cym. But I have a NOID standard Cym. given to me by a friend who couldn't get it to bloom. The first year I kept it outside at night until near frost and then brought it into the greenhouse. It was getting fairly high light over the winter although snow piles up on the glass roof cutting the sunlight a lot. The night time temps were around 55 and daytime up to 65 degrees. I cut back on watering and feeding compared to summer and by March it was just lovely in bloom! Thru the next summer I gave it a fair bit of nitrogen in the fertilizer. They are known to like more than some orchids. It also likes quite high light or the leaves will get long and floppy and darker green. They should be a grassy green and not be flopping over too much. More water in warm weather and misting is much appreciated. My greenhouse can get quite warm in the summer even tho I do have a cooling system that cuts in. For some reason, this plant then bloomed much earlier (in the early winter as opposed to early spring. It makes me wonder if some of these have a 9 month cycle as I didn't think I changed its growing conditions much. Those are the conditions that seem to keep mine reasonably happy and it has bloomed twice in a bit less than two years. On that note, it won't be blooming in early winter this year as the new growths aren't showing spikes yet. I am willing to bet it is back to blooming in March!

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[stonedragonfarms]

Originally Posted by silken

I'm not sure about your fall blooming Cym. But I have a NOID standard Cym. given to me by a friend who couldn't get it to bloom. The first year I kept it outside at night until near frost and then brought it into the greenhouse. It was getting fairly high light over the winter although snow piles up on the glass roof cutting the sunlight a lot. The night time temps were around 55 and daytime up to 65 degrees. I cut back on watering and feeding compared to summer and by March it was just lovely in bloom! Thru the next summer I gave it a fair bit of nitrogen in the fertilizer. They are known to like more than some orchids. It also likes quite high light or the leaves will get long and floppy and darker green. They should be a grassy green and not be flopping over too much. More water in warm weather and misting is much appreciated. My greenhouse can get quite warm in the summer even tho I do have a cooling system that cuts in. For some reason, this plant then bloomed much earlier (in the early winter as opposed to early spring. It makes me wonder if some of these have a 9 month cycle as I didn't think I changed its growing conditions much. Those are the conditions that seem to keep mine reasonably happy and it has bloomed twice in a bit less than two years. On that note, it won't be blooming in early winter this year as the new growths aren't showing spikes yet. I am willing to bet it is back to blooming in March!

I forget who did research on this, I will have to pull the book off of my shelf, but there was work done at UC Santa Barbara in the 60's I believe that showed that if cymbidiums were grown under warm days & cool nights, there would be spike formation and flowering on every new growth--ie the plants were continuously producing new pseudobulbs and flowering as each new growth occured...if the conditions are right, it is possible for the plants to bloom in less than a years time... I have quite a few plants in my collection that will bloom earlier than usual if we have a long run of very cool summer nights...
Just my 2 cents
Adam