Dendrobium Unicum - No Clue, Dormancy

[Dalton]

I was watching a youtube video on slingshot making and they said one way to speed the process up was to stick the wood in the microwave on high for 60 seconds and then on 30 second intervals as long as you see steam coming out. It was their way of "aging" small pieces of wood. I wonder if that would prevent the mold issues you were talking about.

I went to my orchid club meeting last Saturday and took it with me to ask for advice. I mostly got ribbed about killing it, but I got a few pieces of helpful advice. It was all completely contradictory, though, so yeah.

Anyway, I'll probably use some combination of it. The guy I'd gotten it from pushed the LFS it was in tighter around it and said don't mess with it. Another person said to water it once every 2-3 weeks. Another person, who made more sense to me objectively said that with no leaves the plant doesn't have anything to do with the water I give it and it will just rot the roots.

That made the most sense to me, with the caveat that I don't know what I'm doing. It just seemed to make logical sense. However, it also makes sense to me not to leave it in a low humidity room and do zilch with it. In the wild it'd would get mist or at least moisture from the higher humidity. Also, there should be a small amount of photosynthesis going on with the canes.

It had actually completely fallen out of the media when people were checking it out. The person who helped me the most said that they'd probably just leave it sitting on top of the moss in the small clay pot its in. Possibly even leave that tray sitting in water. That would increase the humidity for the plant without having it sitting in water. I think it's similar to you bag with sphagnum moss. The only difference is the air flow.

I'm actually inclined to try you idea more as it would ramp up the humidity the most. I only worry about rot with the stagnant air.

Like you, the person helping me said that when it did start showing growth, they'd pot it in something like orchiata. A small sized free draining mix.

That is reinforced by what I saw on Orchid Girl's youtube.com channel about watering Dendrobium nobile. She said that while they like very frequent watering while in growth, they don't like to have the media soaking.

[wintergirl]

I have one that is mounted. I wet the roots daily. It lost it's leaves then grew new ones. It bloomed and now it's starting to loose leaves again. Here is mine in bloom.

[u bada]

beautiful wintergirl!

The thing is some woods rot less or more than others over time. Once wood rots enough mold/fungus start developing (natural process, i.e. like on forest floor). So even if you're able to disinfect it, eventually it can rot. might be a while, but depends not he wood. Cork seems to last really long. Many oaks (cork for instance is a type of oak). Cedar.

So re your society's talk, yes it's all very confusing isn't it? LOL (but good insight from them to be sure) I've griped about species dendrobium on here before... and well, it's just something to accept. I have a lot of species, and actually it's a pretty diverse group, but seems like if you do something wrong they just take a while to bounce back and usually it requires little watering and lots of patience. Sometimes they just die... oy.

The bag method... I've tried the bag method and the keeping it on sphag with numerous leafless stems/ pseudobulbs with numerous species... sometimes they take sometimes they don't. I've had best success with bag method. The issue with air flow is that it increases respiration so water leaves the plant to some degree (without leaves it's not a lot of respiration but still some) but with no roots there's nothing to take up water. It can only do that through osmosis... that's why I think bag method works best... but it's not full proof for sure. It's a good idea to keep the bag slightly open so it's not completely stagnant... If there's an infection, it can certainly make matters worst, so either bag or not make sure to disinfect the plant with physan, or hydrogen peroxide (diluted), and/or just let dry completely for a day or so before you put on sphag pot or in a bag. if the pseudobulbs are plump enough it has water to keep it green and alive for a shocking long amount of time.

That said, I'm not sure what the yellowing of of the pbs, mean, maybe snap a pic.

I just started using orchiata this year, heard and read great things about it. I think it would be a great media for many dendrobium species as it is said to dry fast and doesn't break down for a long time anyway. They don't like to be disturbed root wise from my experience, whatsoever...

[Dalton]

Sweet orchid, wintergirl.

U bada, I'll definitely snap some picks as it is now, to compare with the pics in my original post. It's definitely shriveling.

I had a carnivorous plant that wasn't doing good over the winter. I ended up taking a small clear trash bag and clipped it up to a clothes hanger I had hung on the lamp. The only issue I think it might have had was that the plastic, even being clear was probably blocking some of the light waves. It did get the humidity up to 70%+ even with the bag mostly open at the top. I had a humidity reader, but it recently quite working on me. I have to try to get it replaced. You can only read half the numbers now.

[wintergirl]

Some carnivorous plants go dormant in the winter. Mine never go completely dormant but they are inside and it does get cooler in the room in winter but not cold. Some people put their carnivorous plants in a garage or basement in winter.

[Dalton]

You're right. I'm here in SC and I leave my Venus Flytraps and Sarracenias out all winter. The sarrs die back and I just cut all the tubes off in the spring before it starts blooming again. The VFT's just grow smaller traps closer to the ground.

They were out in weather that got down to 10deg last winter and they were find. I was told once in a bonsai class that it's actually better to water bonsai when it's going to freeze. They said the water freezes the whole pot solid and the roots are kept stable. They said that if the pot is dry, then the roots will freeze, expand, and burst. I guess it's similar for the CP's. I've had the pots freeze solid and they're just find. They sit on the front steps all year in saucers of water. I just top the water off when I water the dog. My biggest issue with them so far is the dog and cat will bypass their own water dishes and drink out of my CP trays.

They're natural to my state though, so I don't have to do anything special. I have heard of people putting them in basements and even in refrigerators. Either way, they have to have a dormancy or they die on you.

The plant I was referring to above, though was a Nepenthes 'Lady Luck'. It's a tropical CP and it doesn't have a winter dormancy.

[wintergirl]

We had a cp grower speak at our orchid meeting and was surprised that my plants did not go dormant or die. IDK, they stay in live moss setting in a dish of rain water. Never lost any.

[Dalton]

What types did you have and how long did they go without a dormancy?

[wintergirl]

I have more now but the ones I had over last winter were Drosera natalensis, Pinguicula primulifora, and Pinguicula moraneasis. None of those died or seemed dormant. They also all bloomed for me. Now I have some Sarracenia & B52 Venous fly traps so things may change. I am a total novice in CP so I really didn't know what I was doing. I bought the butterworts but the drosera just came from seeds that must have been in the plants I bought.

I just looked and my primulifora was blooming Jan 14th, that is when this picture was taken.

[Dalton]

I don't have any pings or drosera, just VFT's and Sarracenia. I read that you can actually force young Sarracenia and leave them in a warm place with lots of light for a couple of years and give them a big jump start, but they said if you don't rest them on that third year they'll start dying on you. I don't know much about the drosera or pings.

I was, and basically still am, a novice at CP's. I've just done a lot of reading and research, along with my first hand experience. I actually got my first flowers from a CP this year. It was my VFT. It put out about 7 flower spikes. They were doing great, but then all but two died. I don't think the other two got pollinated. I was going to do it manually, but I was too late.

I would recommend you check out terraforums.com as well as a book by Peter D'Amato called "The Savage Garden". That's what really helped me out. I'd found all kinds of bad advice before that on the internet and I'd killed several plants.

I'd been reading things like plant in peat moss, but just top water and leave over a saucer of water for humidity. Of course the peat dried out and turned rock hard, starving it of water. I was also doing ridiculous things like taking a week solution of miracle grow and rubbing it on the underside of the leaves. Only the undersides, though, according to the article.

Since finding "The Savage Garden" I put them in their preferred mix of sand and peat. I set them in a tray of water on the front steps, keep those trays topped off with water, and let the rain water flush them periodically. They've done amazing. I do that year round and the only other care I give them is removing dead plant material. I did have to treat one sarr for aphids, but that has been it.