Yet another Aussie orchid nut!

[OrchidGuru]

Hi everyone,
my name is Jess, I grow my orchids in Sydney, Australia. The climate here is temperate, outdoors I grow a lot of cooler tolerant types such as Cymbidiums, Phaius, Stanhopeas, Sarcochilus, Zygopetalums, Pleione (and a few others!).
Indoors I grow Phals (species and hybrids), Paphs and a few Vandaceous species. I dabble with some hybridizing and flasking at home. I've always had a few orchids of some sort hanging about the place for as long as I can remember but in recent years the hobby has become more serious and now there are plants everywhere - all through the garden and on any good windowsill in the house!
Looking forward to chatting with other orchid nuts here.

Cheers, Jess

[RosieC]

Hi Jess and welcome to Orchid Board.

Well we're all orchid nuts here, so you've come to the right place. If you've not seen it we have a section on propergation techniques where several people are flasking orchids... I've not dared to think about that yet myself.

[Tropicgirl]

Welcome to the OB! Glad to have you here!

Flasking sounds so challenging - I must try it someday soon!

[trdyl]

Jess, Welcome to OB!

You will be in good company here. You will fit right in.

[Rosiefuture]

Hi Jess and welcome, I'm over the other side of Oz near Perth. I too would eventually like to get into flasking.

Marion

[OrchidGuru]

Thanks so much for the warm welcome!

Nice to see that there's quite a few Aussies on the board, too!

Flasking is quite daunting - it's certainly a steep learning curve with many disappointments at first, but it's very rewarding if you stick with it. I've just done 15 flasks yesterday - now the wait to see if there's any contamination......hopefully I've done a good job!

Cheers, Jess

[barkingsquirrell]

Welcome to the board Jess. Hope you enjoy it here and learn a ton. I know I have in my short time here so far.

I'd love to get into flasking but don't have the time or space at the moment for it.

[tansyflower]

Hi Jess,

I'm from SE Qld, just north of Brissy.

Welcome to Orchidboard!

My only deflasking experience was not successful (actually could not have been less successful!!).

Will be interested to see some photos of the orchids you grow, as you aren't too far away.

Tansy

[OrchidGuru]

Hey Tansy,
don't be put off by one bad deflasking experience - sometimes you do just get a flask that is difficult to get the seedlings going. I have found that you need to check the roots of the little plantlets in the flask - if they don't have lots of great roots, then best to leave the flask for a while until they do (no matter how good the leaves look). You can just keep the flask in an indirectly lit window (they don't need lots of light as flasked plants actually do very little photosynthesis due to the media they are in - long story) and make sure they're not too hot or cold (20-25 degrees C is good), often after a couple of months you'll find the seedlings have caught up and made nice roots. If they still haven't, you can deflask but will need to "baby" the seedlings and provide a lot of humidity.
I've always found that seedlings that did poorly out of flask had poor roots to start with, whereas I've deflasked Phal seedlings whose leaves were all but crushed (broken flasks) but the roots were great, and these seedlings all grew like wildfire!

Cheers, Jess

[snakecharma]

hiya Jess