Hello from the Inland Northwest, USA

[fishsqueezer]

I've been into houseplants most of my life, especially aroids and succulents/cacti. In the last few years I've started getting into Hoya, but I had never gotten into orchids beyond grocery store moth orchids. But in the last couple years during the COVID houseplant boom, somehow a few new genera of orchid crept their way into my house.

My collection is not as large as I would like because I have too many kids and not enough room to get over my impostor syndrome. I'm a big fan of fragrance, so I generally choose those species and cultivars. I accidentally made the mistake of thinking I should figure out the care and cultivation of the founding species before I started collecting hybrids, without knowing that species are often harder to care for! So I've made some mistakes and killed some plants, but learned a lot. Winter overwatering is a problem for me.

So far I have bloomed:
Brassavola nodosa 'Grace'
Brassavola cucullata
Dendrobium kingianum
Dendrobium nobile hybrid
Oncidium 'Sharry Baby' (currently blooming)
Oncidium sotoanum
Phalaenopsis NOID
Phalaenopsis violaceae coerulea
Rhipidoglossum xanthopollinium
Zygopetalum NOID

This year I hope to see blooms for the first time from:
Cyrtorchis chailluana
Dendrobium anosmum
Dendrobium thyrsiflorum
Encyclia tampensis
Lc. 'Sagarik Wax' "African Beauty" x Blc. 'Cherry Suisse' "Kauai"
Maxillaria tenuifolia
Miltoniopsis 'Morris Chestnut'
Phalaenopsis bellina
Phalaenopsis schillereana
Phalaenopsis sanderiana
Vanda NOID

Plants that I have that are barely clinging to life about which I would be happy to receive advice:
Laelia lilliputiana
Schoenorchis fragrans

So far I have murdered:
Dendrophylax lindenii (twice - this will be my holy grail orchid someday)
Haraella retrocalla
Neofinetia falcata
Paphiopedilum
Phals (lots of times)
Pleione

I was extremely lucky last fall to acquire mature specimens of both Dendrobium kingianum and Dendrobium nobile (possibly a hybrid), which both bloomed wonderfully for me.




Now that I've (hopefully) introduced myself in a satisfactory way, I'm off to bug people about orchids. Thanks for reading!

Colton (fishsqueezer)

[estación seca]

Welcome to the Orchid Board!

Different kinds of orchids require different light, temperatures and watering. Learning about each plant is important. The two beautifully flowering plants you show require low winter night temperatures to flower. Those temperatures would be too low for some other orchids. Most deaths in cultivation are related to growing conditions not being correct.

[fishsqueezer]

Thank you for the advice. Neither of these Dendrobium were in bud or bloom when I acquired them, so I did learn about them and was able to provide the cool, dry rest they needed to bring them into flower. My D. anosmum and D. thyrsiflorum are still resting, although I finally see some buds swelling on the latter.

[Louis_W]

Good to have you fishsqueezer! Looks like you already know what youre doing! Welcome to the mix!

[Ray]

Welcome aboard.

[DeaC]

Hello. I've had hits and misses too but am interested in how your Cyrtorchis does. Have mine 1yr and think there's a nubbin' of a spike and was told it's a slow grower. Glad you found OB!

[fishsqueezer]

DeaC

Growing this orchid has been a bit of a struggle for me, too. I bought it as a potted specimen last spring at the Spokane Orchid Society's annual show and sale, and I put it outside in my greenhouse over the summer where I had timed daily irrigation and I rotted its roots completely off. It was sad and dumb. So last fall it was pretty dehydrated and I almost gave up on it.

It looked like it was putting out one tiny nub of a root, so in a last ditch attempt to revive it, I decided to mount it and put it in my orchid IKEA cabinet with high humidity and air circulation. I was pleased to see that each stem of the plant grew a little stubby root about an inch long before it went completely dormant for winter.

Having learned my lesson about overwatering, I was careful to make sure it stayed pretty dry over the winter and only sprayed it when the leaves started to shrivel a little. Then a couple of weeks ago those little root stubs sent out a couple of tiny lateral roots, which convinced me that it had a long enough nap. So I put it back in the rotation for being sprayed with my other mounted orchids every 24 - 48 hours (depending on if I remember and have time). So far so good! From what I've seen online I think the green part of the plant is large enough to flower this year, but its root mass is still grossly undersized for the size of the plant so I'm not sure it will have enough sugar and water storage to successfully flower, but I'm hoping! Now that it's mounted I also hope that daily irrigation won't rot it to death because I am a professional biologist and I don't have time to baby my plants through the summer.

You can see progress photos in this album (hopefully):

https://www.orchidboard.com/communit...lbums1765.html

[Mountaineer370]

Welcome to the Orchid Board!

[Dusty Ol' Man]

Welcome