Zygonisia Cynosure 'Alba'

[lotis146]

I got this rather small plant from Seattle Orchids in December. It arrived with two small pbulbs & one new growth which I found to be in very low spike! This as you know is a great surprise...until it shows you it doesn't like the adjustment to its new home and the spike yellows, shrivels & dies.

BUT THEN this summer it started a spike. This is one of my peat moss experiment plants and was repotted into a clay pot, which means the peat moss dries out faster than it does in plastic or glazed ceramic. While other Zygo hybrids were spiking and then rotting - Zygolum Rhein 'Moonlight' & Ianclarkara Cheyenne Marie 'Midori' - I was pleased to see this little guy was unphased. The others rotted after some high heat, rain & then some lower temps.

One of three buds did blast but the other two opened beautifully. One of the blooms has some sunken black spots on it that have darkened some but not spread. Enjoy!!

Here it is post promix repot:


In low spike:


In bloom yeah!


And with Miltassia Shelob for an idea of scale:

[RosieC]

Beautiful, glad this one did well for you. Looks you've hit on a good way to grow these.

[bethmarie]

Share the wisdom, Lotis. I want to get better at growing these.

Where did you find the alba? I've rarely seen those.

Lovely little plant

[WhiteRabbit]

Very nice!

[snowflake311]

my Zygonisia is the Dark Purple kind it's almost blue I have a photo of it. Mine is in bloom for me again! Why is yours so small? Mine throws out the longest leaves of all my orchids. I wish it was small. Is yours a seedling? The newer growth is not growing as crazy long at the older growth that was growing in Lower light condition. Do you think Light could keep these Zygonisia more compact?

[ThePinkCucumber]

Very pretty, definitely missing in my collection!

[Leafmite]

Congratulations!
I had a few Zygos but the leaves drove me crazy (sort of like with Oncidiums). The blooms are very beautiful, though, and I love seeing the pictures.

[DeaC]

Originally Posted by bethmarie

Share the wisdom, Lotis. I want to get better at growing these.

Where did you find the alba? I've rarely seen those.

Lovely little plant

FYI,got mine from Kalapana in HI.

[lotis146]

Originally Posted by bethmarie

Share the wisdom, Lotis. I want to get better at growing these.

Where did you find the alba? I've rarely seen those.

Lovely little plant

Sorry it's taken me so long to reply. I got mine from Seattle Orchids though I have also seen them on the Kalapana website.

For the most part - that is until we have high humidity, lots of rain, and hot & cold spells back to back - my zygos really love being outdoors in the summer. I provide them with fairly bright light all day long in the summer. They seem happiest not to dry all the way out. I haven't been very good at fertilizing, even over the summer because we got so much rain I took the lazy way out and just let the rain do the job thus they didn't get fert. But when I do I use K-Lite and KelpMax, which wound up being every 2-3 weeks I'd say. I'm constantly hearing/reading btw that Zygos are hungry plants, that it's important to feed them regularly when there's new growth. There were three buds on this spike initially however I think the moisture and temperature changes took its toll and caused that one to blast (meanwhile my Zygolum lost three spikes to rot).

I'm procrastinating in finishing my indoor set up as I'm using lights this year but last year I tried to keep my Zygos in relatively bright indirect light. If you ask me some of them like bright Oncidium style lighting but will burn in too direct light. I did not give them a rest period, but that's not saying a whole lot because I underwater... Good luck!

It can be tricky b/c if I'm correct Aganisia (the other half of Zygonisia) is a warm growing species, I know mine does better in the bird room with the space heater. Meanwhile a lot of Zygos are cool to intermediate, and i think it's safe to say that most of the resulting Zygonisias are on the intermediate side when it comes to temperature. That said I do think a change in temperature and possibly lighting helps them. Mind you I still consider myself an amateur I just have a lot of plants. When I say temperature change I don't mean summer to fall necessarily as mine started spiking long before that, but we also had a spell of cold evening temps late this summer so that could have done it but last year my Zygolum spiked around the same time. I'll have to go back and see exactly when these spikes started though I haven't been so meticulous with my notes all summer. Btw I have three other Zygo hybrids currently in bud (fingers crossed they don't blast), I think they were induced by colder temps even more so.

Originally Posted by snowflake311

my Zygonisia is the Dark Purple kind it's almost blue I have a photo of it. Mine is in bloom for me again! Why is yours so small? Mine throws out the longest leaves of all my orchids. I wish it was small. Is yours a seedling? The newer growth is not growing as crazy long at the older growth that was growing in Lower light condition. Do you think Light could keep these Zygonisia more compact?

Hello Snowflake, this plant I believe isn't just small because it's a young plant though it's not a seedling. When I got it it had a short spike but the change in conditions from greenhouse to my house in winter took its toll. Have you ever seen an Aganisia plant (one of the parents to these hybrids)? Well they are rather small at least the one I have is. They don't grow so tall with long leaves like a lot of Zygos do. As is the case with breeding, some plants may express traits that are more like one parent than the other. My brothers and I have brown eyes while my sister has green eyes much like my grandmother. I think this plant is more Aganisia than Zygopetalum. I have another plant currently in bud that is a cross between Zygoneria Adelaide Meadows (used for a lot of crosses) and Propetalum Mathina. The latter is a cross between a Promenaea and Zygopetalum; all the Proms I've seen are small, miniature even while my plant is quite large, among my tallest before it lost its leaves and the flowers are green and burgundy/purple like AM, no yellow like the Propetalums.

Also this alba is considered mutation.

Sorry to be so long-winded, hopefully it wasn't too much to read. Thank you everyone for looking and responding!

[Tindomul]

Elegant little blooms.