Paphs in bloom

[The Mutant]

Oooh... I've rather recently discovered the beauty of Paphs and these are gorgeous. I believe when my Phal frenzy is over I'll try this genus.

Just realized something sad, I'll never be able to have an MK even though I totally adore those long tails. The problem is that one of my cats has a thing for anything that looks remotely like a string, and exactly what do those tails resemble? To her kitty brain the answer would be = strings! And then I would have a cat dragging the flower around in the flat.

[kavanaru]

Originally Posted by billc

I'm pretty lucky this year. I've finally figured out consistent culture is good for paphs. Here's Michael Koopowitz along with a delenatii in bloom. I also have a roth throwing a spike, hopefully that will flower in a couple of weeks.

Bill

Bill, there you have a very nice Paph. MK! Congrats! how long are the petals?

[camille1585]

Originally Posted by The Mutant

Oooh... I've rather recently discovered the beauty of Paphs and these are gorgeous. I believe when my Phal frenzy is over I'll try this genus.

Why wait for your Phal phase to be over? You need to collect Phals AND Paphs at the same time!

[billc]

Originally Posted by kavanaru

Bill, there you have a very nice Paph. MK! Congrats! how long are the petals?

Hi Ramon, The petals are about 9 1/2 inches long. On last years blooming they got to 11 inches. Being from the US I have no idea what that is in CM. that the rest of the world uses.

Bill

[kavanaru]

Originally Posted by billc

Hi Ramon, The petals are about 9 1/2 inches long. On last years blooming they got to 11 inches. Being from the US I have no idea what that is in CM. that the rest of the world uses.

Bill

nice!

that's 24 cm this year and 29 cm last year...

[billc]

Thanks everyone for your kind remarks.
For those that asked here's my Paph culture that works for my conditions.
I grow in an unheated basement in a moveable shelf system I picked up at Lowes and wrapped with plastic to help keep heat and humidity in.
Temps are 50 F at night and between 75- 80F during the day. I have 2 pancake fans running 24-7.
I have a humidifier set to run 15 min of every hr.
I use collected rain water and in the dead of winter sometimes have to supplement with RO.
I fertilize every other watering with MSU at about 75PPM.
Every once in a while I'll skip the feeding.
Right now I use Antec's CHC mix(ladyslipper.com is a great resource)
6 parts medium CHC(washed 3-4 times)
3 parts #4(medium) sponge rock(perlite
1 part medium charcoal.
I use the skewer method to determine when to water, which works out to about 2X a week. I water when they approach dryness.
A good idea is when you are trying a new mix is to just put some in the same size pot you have the plants in, water it the same and occasionally knock it out of the pot to see how it retains moisture .
I have some plants in a bark mix and use the same ratios changing bark for CHC. The Orciata bark Ray's has is pretty nice.
I keep the big multifloral paphs at about 1800 foot candles and the delenatii at about 900 foot candles for 12 hrs each day.

Hope that wasn't too long winded.

Bill

[Lagoon]

Fantastic Bill, nice pay-off