It's that time of year again!! It's still a bit cold in many areas to order orchids, but it usually takes at least a couple weeks to find suitable plants and vote for the favorite, so we might as well get started. If we aim to have a plant selected by the second week of April, then the shipping window should have opened for nearly everyone.
For those that haven’t participated in such a project before, here’s the concept: We research orchids that meet a rough set of criteria, and once we have a list of at least 5-6 candidates, all participants vote for their favorite. The winning plant is our project plant that everyone will purchase. Then we can compare notes about culture, give tips to each other (and see who gets it to bloom first!).
I propose to keep the standard criteria in place for plant selection in order to make the project open to as many people as possible:
- Climate: No extremes, so intermediate temperature and moderate humidity requirements.
- Age: blooming size or near blooming size (should be BS in less than a year).
- Size: miniature-small to intermediate sized plants. No monsters!
- Price: Affordable - usually try to stay under $25/25€, but that might be too low as prices seem to have risen quite a bit in recent years.
- Availability: available in sufficient numbers/multiple growers
- Preferably species: easier to find worldwide, but common hybrids can work too. This is not an issue if only US based members join.
In this post I will keep a list of members who are joining the project, as well as the list of plant suggestions.
When suggesting plants, please keep the criteria in mind, and please post the name/link of at least 1 reputable vendor who carries the plant. This makes the selection process much easier.
Do we want to focus on a couple specific genera this year, or leave it open to everything?
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Participants:
Keysguy ??
Camille1585
PlumCrazy
realoldbeachbum
Leafmite
WaterWitchin
Tim P
Plant suggestions:- Leptotes bicolor (Hausermann (2 years from BS); Ecuagenera; SBOE $25+ size unknown; Diamond Orchids 4N $35 - also has unicolor and bohnkiana).
Letotes pohlitinicoi (Cal Orchid $25; NWO $25)
Andy has bohnkiana for $40, and L. bicolor (not on website) for $25, of 4N types for $40 (also not on website)
Leptotes bicolor and related species meet criteria and are considered 'easy'.
- Tolumnia urophyllum (Andy's $18 BS)
- Tolumnia prionochilum (Andy's $22 BS)
- Angraecum distichum (Diamond Orchids $28 BS ; SBOE $25+)
Meets criteria, 'easy'
- Dendrobium unicum (Andy's $26 BS ; NWO $25)
Does not seem to need cool winter. Meets criteria
May be challenging due to temperature requirements:- Dendrobium jenkinsii (Andy's $24 BS ; Hausermann $25 BS ; NWO $25)
Cool, dry winter rest needed - challenging for indoor growers
- Dendrobium ejerii (syn. capillipes) (Andy's $33 BS ; NWO $25)
Cool, dry winter rest also needed??
- Dendrobium hekouense (J&L $28 BS ; NWO $35)
Cool growing but apparently tolerates heat rather well.
No vendors found yet:- Macodes petola
- Brassia species
- Cattleya dayana fma. coerulea
Gets too large for our purposes:- Epidendrum ciliare (SBOE $25+)
- Dendrobium farmerii (Andy's $32 NBS; LOC $35)
Seems it can get quite large? 20-40cm (~8 to 15 inches)
Spring 2022 plant project: sign up and plant suggestions
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