Cypripedium reginae potting mix?

[OrchidLoverSA]

Hey guys, first a little background:

I got this cypripedium around April this year (it's my first one). I spoke to a guy at the show who grows them, and he told me that as soon as it dies down I should unpot it and put it in the fridge for around two months. I did that about three weeks ago, at the time it had 2 new growths coming and when I checked earlier this week I saw that it had pushed out a third whilst "chilling". Anyway, that seems to be working.

Onto the question: I'm getting conflicting information on what potting mix to use when I pot it again, some places say acidic, other places say basic. I'm thinking acidic, since it likes bogs and the like. I like using palm peat, if acidic is good is that acidic enough or should I buy some regular potting mix? Or something more exotic?

Thanks upfront for the help!

[WhiteRabbit]

[gnathaniel]

Take this with a big grain of salt since I don't actually grow reginae, but as far as I know it does prefer a neutral to slightly alkaline substrate. The one time I've ever seen this species growing in the wild was at a calcareous fen-type wetland, not an acid bog.

I'd suggest checking out slippertalk.com, there are several people there with extensive experience growing Cyps and lots of information in old threads as well. Hope this helps!

[OrchidLoverSA]

I will and thank you. The reason I thought acid bogs was that was what my orchid book said was a general requirement for cypripediums. Then again, generalisations loses more information than they give I guess.

[naoki]

This is just my 2nd year growing a few Cyps, and I'm not so successful with them. But from the info I gathered, most people use inorganic media with really good drain, but some people use "soil" type mix.

Link to good info:

Gardens at Post Hill

Cypripedium reginae, the showy lady’s slipper

Cyp. Haven: Culture Sheet (culture-7, C.E.W.)