Dendrobium victoria-reginae: all around care
Hey everyone, i’m new to the board! I’ve been growing orchids for about 3 years now and have about 20 species with a wide range from your typical Phalaenopsis from the grocery store, to Ascocentrum pumilum, to Dendrophylax fawcettii.
My question, though, concerns my Dendrobium victoria-reginae: a beautiful orchid but somewhat tricky.
I purchased this orchid from Andy’s about a year and a half ago, it was mounted and had one leafless canes and two other canes with a few leaves (5 or 6). It looked sort of straggly but still on the healthy side. A few months later, it developed some orange spots, circles, on some of the leaves. I tried all sorts of stuff, I even put cinnamon on the leaves for about a month because that was said to help. I also repotted it: it was in sphagnum, and since it wasn’t doing well in that (obviously) I took it out and put it in a bark mix. I noticed it had a new cane starting to come out, and a few months later it flowered. Anyway, then I sort of neglected it slightly because it was just so tricky! Recently, though, I’ve started keeping a closer eye on it, the spots have disappeared and it was looking a little better. So yesterday I separated the nice new cane from the rest of the plant: I potted it up in one of those fancy ceramic orchid pots with the holes/designs on the sides, so it is now in there with a mix of half orchid bark with charcoal and some white little pellet things and half sphagnum.
Anyway, long story short, does anyone have any suggestions/tricks for this chid? I see them online and they look BEAUTIFUL, but mine isn’t nearly as full and vigorous.
Also, what makes the canes turn purple? I find it so intriguing when they’re like that, but none of my canes have any purple.
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