Random orchid thoughts in the shower...

[PaphLover]

Yes, really.

In the shower, I was thinking about paphs and those beautiful, large paphs often displayed at shows with many fans blooming at the same time.

How do growers accomplish this? Is it cultural? Or is it just the plants doing what they do when they get strong enough to bloom multiple fans at once?

I have a charlesworthii x with 6 fans. In November, it bloomed on the 5th fan and this month, it decided to bloom on the 4th fan. The 6th is still growing.




This isn't a complaint. I'm happy to have the blooms staggered if that's what Mr. Charles wants. Just curious though...

[jkofferdahl]

Successful Paph growers have a bit of magician in them. Those who breed and show these magnificent specimen plants are sorcerors. Thus, those plants they display are under a spell. As a minor Paph dabbler I can conceive of no other explanation.

[charlesf6]

I usually have other thoughts while showering but whatever

[estación seca]

People who grow amazing orchids probably have setups that allow them to give much better care than most home growers.

[PaphLover]

Originally Posted by jkofferdahl

Successful Paph growers have a bit of magician in them. Those who breed and show these magnificent specimen plants are sorcerors. Thus, those plants they display are under a spell. As a minor Paph dabbler I can conceive of no other explanation.

Haha! So true! Harry Potters..all of 'em! Haha! Potters.

---------- Post added at 08:42 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:38 PM ----------

Originally Posted by estación seca

People who grow amazing orchids probably have setups that allow them to give much better care than most home growers.

Hmmm, yes. I agree. I just wonder what they're doing...are they holding back fertilizer, keeping the plants warm while the fans grow, then suddenly dropping the temps and adding magnesium or blooming fertilizer to induce spiking?

It is quite dazzling to see them all blooming.

I thought, out of all my paphs, ole Charlie would have the greatest chance of doing this since he seems so willing to put out new growth.

[jkofferdahl]

Originally Posted by PaphLover

Haha! So true! Harry Potters..all of 'em! Haha! Potters. [e

I once had a tee shirt imprinted with a big bear holding a potted plant. Underneath it said, "hairy potter". I wore in when working in the garden at my kids' school.

[Dollythehun]

The next show you attend, find the owner and ask. You know we addicts love to share.

[Ray]

OK, this is going to sound like an ad, but please bear with me as this is really just a description of my observations.

Paphs were some of my early loves in the orchid world, so I've had more experience with them than any other genus. Even at that, in the best of times, I might get a new growth every nine months or so, which would bloom upon maturing.

My plants were either in semi-hydroponic culture, or under "ordinary" culture using 75% #5 Orchiata and 25% coarse sponge rock, and for the last several years, I stuck pretty strictly to a single regimen: I applied about 25 ppm N (K-Lite 12-1-1-10 Ca-3 Mg) in RO at every watering, which averaged 3x/week. Once a month, I added KelpMax to that at a 1:250 concentration (1 tablespoon per gallon), and two weeks later, Inocucor Garden Solution @ 1:85 (3 Tbsp/gal).

After a couple of years of that, I started noticing that the slippers were growing and multiplying much more quickly than they had ever done in the past. A mature, single-growth complex hybrid (purchased from Hillsview in bud), became 4 growths later that year. A 2-growth Paph. delenatii was 12 about a year later, and that trend continued with all of the slippers, including phrags. The same was true of cattleyas, encyclias and the like, and others. My first attempt to mount two single-growth Aerangis luteo-alba v. rhodosticta plants on a cypress knee now has 5 growths total, although it is not doing nearly as well in a kitchen window as it did in a greenhouse.

With more mass, and more growths maturing together, I have gotten some of the best shows of blooms I've ever seen.

I think that lots of water, and little food, although mostly nitrogen, is the key to the growth, and the KelpMax, being loaded with a lot more growth-affecting chemicals than just rooting hormones, is probably helping with the multiplication as well as the growth rate. The Inocucor product may very well be enhancing the growth as well, but at the very least, it is probably keeping pathogens at bay, taking away the plants' need to utilize resources to battle them, so they can be dedicated to growth and blooming.

[MrHappyRotter]

Although everybody has their own little secret techniques for various plants, and without knowing specifics here so I'm just speaking in very general terms, much of it comes down to the difference between greenhouse growing and home growing.

For instance, in a greenhouse with lots of room, once you find the right spot for a plant, you can let it sit there for years in many cases, until it's time to repot or take it to a show. Sort of a set it and forget it approach. In years when the growths don't synchronize, growers can just ignore it, or may opt to cut the spikes (and preserve energy) for the next year. Home growers are often stuck with a need to move plants around to water and care for them, as well as a need to turn the plants to keep them from growing in one direction. Plants can get disoriented, dropped, leaves snapped, and all sorts of offenses that greenhouse plants don't usually have to worry about.

Having more room to grow has another benefit. Greenhouse growers can purchase flasks and compots (or at a minimum multiple clones of a cross) and grow them out, then select the best clones and toss or sell the rest. It gives them the ability to bloom an individual plant multiple times, and to compare multiple plants, so they can determine things like vigor and floriferousness. Indoor growers mostly don't have the luxury or desire to grow out a dozen or more plants of the same cross for 10 years in order to figure out which one(s) bloom best.

It's also more likely that greenhouse grown plants are getting more natural drops in night temperatures, and while the temperature differential isn't necessarily required by many plants, it definitely seems to help. Also, some species, even if they don't go dormant in the winter, seem to benefit from cooler winter temperatures. The daily and annual temperature cycles help keep the plants' circadian rhythm in check, and thus the growing and blooming cycles of all the growths are more synchronized. Most indoor growers keep the thermostat fairly constant (at least on a seasonal basis), so the plants don't see year round temperature drops at night.

Greenhouse growers also have an easier time getting plants evenly watered and fed. They mostly just point a hose at the plants and let them soak for a bit, which works for big plants and little plants alike. In a home, as plants get bigger, it becomes harder and harder to ensure each growth is getting its fair share, resulting in some growths that mature faster than others, a situation which can also lead to staggered blooming -- particularly with things like paphs and phrags that often bloom when a growth matures.

Another thing to consider is, some species naturally bloom throughout the year, with no dedicated bloom season, each growth just tends to spike once it matures assuming that conditions are good enough and the plant is healthy. Add to that, a lot of hybrids are mixtures of species that would bloom at different times of the year, resulting in hybrids that are sort of left somewhere in between, or which are just as prone to bloom during one blooming season as another. For example, if you cross a spring and a fall bloomer, you might end up with a plant that blooms in late spring, another might be a late summer bloomer, and yet another might have some growths that bloom in the spring while others bloom in the fall, so you never end up with a synchronized, mass blooming. What you're seeing at shows might be specific crosses or species that tend to be more seasonal bloomers, where as what you're comparing those to in your home collection might not be seasonal, mass bloomers.

[PaphLover]

Ray and MrHappyRotter,

Thanks for your informative replies. Really interesting!

Ray,
Now that I'm getting KelpMax and Inocucor, and the application rates, I shall be expecting to post photos of my multi-fan paphs by next year.