Cultural conditions for Phragmipedium humboldtii

[piping plover]

Ooops, sorry for the duplicate post. I meant to quote your preceding post.

Hi Roberta,

The cymbidiums in Ecuador must have been a spectacular sight to see. Do you have the room to grow the full size ones in your collection?

Since you mentioned cymbidiums and you are located in Southern California (?) , I thought of you last weekend at our Cape Cod orchid society mtg. We hosted NH orchid hobbyists (Jerry Kessler and Susan Anderson), who presented a fascinating story about their care of a one-bulb cymbidium that they purchased on a whim…And 33 years later, with painstaking indoor care, grew this orchid into a two-time AOS award-winning giant: 7 ft in diameter and 8 ft tall, 1,170 blooms on 43 inflorescences.

After communicating with very high profile gardens in the US, they chose the Huntington Botanical Gardens, which I understand is in your area.

It was quite the story with all the twists and turns in traveling from New England to California with a U-Haul carrying this beautiful beast of a specimen. To hear Jerry recount the story was very entertaining.

Anyhow, perhaps you will see it someday on a visit to Huntingtons in their Asian(?) themed garden area. I added a screenshot (from our latest newsletter) of the specimen in its new home; and a photographer for scale. Lol.

Best,
Joseph

Originally Posted by Roberta

I have done a lot of traveling, and I still think that the Ecuador trip was the best. My "ah-ha" moment was when I walked into the living room of Pepe Portilla, the owner of Ecuagenera (have known him for many years) and saw lots of big, happy, blooming standard Cymbidiums! I had thought that the higher-elevation climate was very even in temperature and always cool. (Gualaceo is at about 8000 feet) But Cyms need a large temperature gradient in the fall to bloom, and these were clearly getting what they needed. Ecuagenera has nurseries at different elevations, so they grow each type where it grows easily. (They of course grow the wide variety of species that we all love, they also grow hybrids for the pot-plant trade all over South America) It is a small country, but has a huge range of elevations (sea level to above tree-line) and matching range of climates and ecosystems, and probably the highest biodiversity anywhere in the world. (Well over 4000 orchid species!)

[Roberta]

Will delete the duplicate post)

I have a large backyard, plenty of room for standard-size Cymbidiums. (Actually, I prefer the ones that are more like "intermediate", the really big standards I could find room for but they quickly get too big for this little old lady to manage.) I like the small pendant ones ever better. Southern California is one of the best climates in the world for Cyms outside... frost free pretty much but it does get chilly in winter, summers can be hot. But what they really want for blooming (unless bred for broader conditions) is a period in the fall of a month or 6 weeks with reliably cool nights and warm, bright days, and we get that naturally. When the rest of the US is getting serious fall, we're getting 60 degree F nights and bright 80 deg F. days... perfect. That's why when I saw those blooming Cyms in Ecuador, I had a flash of understanding of what I could get away with on the Andean orchids in my yard... Ecuagenera isn't going to grow anything that is challenging in their climate when so many things are easy. In fact, a few years ago I was back in Ecuador to visit the Galapagos, and the Quito airport had some Cyms on display, complements of Ecuagenera. In that same general area (above 1500-2500 m or so), there is a huge industry for roses - most of the cut roses that you can buy in the US come from those higher-elevation areas of Ecuador, grown in huge shade houses. Roses like much of the same climate range as Cyms. At the equator, with equal days and nights, and weather pretty much the same all year around, the growing conditions for those roses can be achieved all the time with little expenditure for environmental management.

That huge Cym. specimen is indeed in the Chinese Garden of the Huntington. It got repotted October 2022 (There was an article about that in the most recent Orchid Digest) A massive undertaking, for sure.

[Jmoney]

humboltii is the entity formerly known as warscewicizianum, which some want to call 'popowii'. The RHS accepts humboldtii. It is one of the long-petalled species, but tends to be much more compact-growing than caudatum...and the flowers *can* be much darker. Some of the old dark Grande cultivars may have been made with this species.

Most would not consider this to be a "wet" grower like almost all other phrags, and it is not generally recommended to sit this in water. I personally grow the long-petalled species in sphagnum moss and clay pots, as some of them do like to basal rot on occasion.