New root and leaf growth here as well though seems more new basal growths than new leaves on existing fans. Have had a little leaf drop on some but they weren’t in the best shape to begin with so actually look better without those leaves anyway. In bark outside on a north facing balcony that is mostly shade because of building structures. Some indoors by the sliding door. A couple in NW facing windows to experiment with different lighting.

Camille, I’m sorry about your collection….

Not sure what it is, probably something bacterial or fungal.

Sorry to hear that. Weird that so many plants become infected with that 'something'.

Hi everyone

How are your Sarcochilus doing?


Just watered my orchids and found a nubbin on the side of the stem from my fitzgeraldii.

It's so tiny that I can't tell yet if it's a root or a spike. It's fairly high up, way higher than the most recent roots, thus my guess is that its a spike. It also grows above the most recent spike. I've never seen it in bloom myself. Must have bloomed for the seller.



Once it is larger I'll show a picture from it.

Fingers crossed.

Growing conditions:
Outdoors this summer and fall, brought it in when temperature was 10C and lower.
I have it in the windowsill, pushed against the glass. Temperature in that location between 12.5 and 14C.
Keep it on the dry side.

Mine still not doing much, I don't expect them to. At my house, they usually bloom around March ( a few early ones may show up in later February, late ones in early April. Timing may be different for those that have to move indoors. Last winter was cool and rainy, the blooming was more like April to May.

I also have a cultivar, way bigger and way healthier plant. It's like the fitzgeraldii growing roots but can't find signs of spikes. Not yet.

Mine just sit patiently while I look at them impatiently.

While looking at them, hypnotize them and whisper that it's ok to bloom for you now :rofl:

Repeating something I mentioned up the thread... the hybridizer Mr. Barrie of Barita Orchids in Australia told our society they water and fertilize every day of the year. Their plants are in continuous growth, even in winter.

I don't have any left because I can't water every day.

Mine has just concluded a month's worth of spending nights in the white wine section of my wine fridge at 45 degrees in the hopes that will be a sufficient enough diurnal temp change to get it to bloom.

All I've noticed so far is that the process doesn't seem to have caused any sort of physical damage. Probably all psychological. :biggrin:

I’ve had to toss some because of persistent pests despite repotting almost all on acquisition. I knew I was risking it taking on a lot of plants with visible signs of pests. Too busy to continue to try to eradicate them and I didn’t want to give them away and ruin someone else’s collection.

Haven’t been able to keep as close an eye on the ones outside that remain as I wished. My building got painted last month so had to move them all from my balcony to the grounds around and I just got back from visiting family for Christmas. Even so, Mother Nature appears to be taking better care of them than the few I have indoors! So still hoping for some flowers next spring!

Mine has been sitting with my Cattleyas, getting a ton of light, Brassavola level of light. It's doing great; instead of growing upwards, it has been growing lateral shoots. The plant has stayed fairly flat, which Barrita mentions is expected to happen in higher light. Trying to replicate their formula: higher light, more compact plant, more flowers.

I've also noticed Cattleya schilleriana growing horizontally (flat leaves parallel to the floor) under higher light, which has been documented by other growers and doesn't seem to affect the plant negatively.


Now my sarc is sitting outside receiving dappled western exposure in Los Angeles. Not sure if the plant is mature enough to bloom, but I'm trying to give it the 6 weeks of night temperatures below 55ºF as recommended on the Barrita website... cuz why not. However, I might bring it back inside in the spring where I can give it higher, more consistent light.

Mine is sitting on a windowsill behind drawn curtains, in the hopes that it will experience some cooler temps there (but it's not under lights). The disease has stopped progressing, but I'm not sure if it's because the pathogen is gone, or because the cooler temps have drastically slowed it down its development. I have to remember to water it, as it's a bit "out of sight out of mind" right now!

The best I can say us that mine is not dead yet! My ceciliae came with a larger blooming growth and a tiny new growth. The larger growth died off completely after blooming, but the small one has clung to life so far, and looks like it might be slowly growing. I have it wintering in my attempt at a cool terrarium with some dendros and paph micranthums.

I was surprised to find one precocious little lone flower on a Sarco. hartmanii that I have had for a long time. It's showing buds, that little flower is 'way early, I don't expect much Sarco blooming until around March .

I've had a lot of fun reading through this thread. Given that the project started in late May, would it be considered bad form to join at this point? I just so happened to have bought my first Sarcochilus in September, a couple of months before I started reading Orchid Board

We're not an exclusive club... :biggrin: sure, join the fun and share your experience. Not bad form at all! Prime Sarco blooming time is coming up soon. I'm eager to see what shows up!

Okay, great!

My Sarco is an interesting case. It's a hybrid called 'Madge', but according to Orchid Roots, its parentage is 90% hartmanii, so I just treat it as such.

I ordered the plant from Ecuagenera back in September and picked it up at a show. When I opened the bag, I was pleasantly surprised to see a mature plant with 9 growths, rather than the tiny plant I was expecting. Things were not all rosy, however. The plant had a ton of dead roots and yellow leaves that would soon drop, and the green leaves were full of mechanical damage in the form of central splits and lateral tears.

The good news is that, four months in, it seems to be doing great. It's made a substantial number of new leaves and roots and even initiated two new fans. I put it on the coldest windowsill in my house for about six weeks with the hope of inducing flowering and -I think- I might be seeing some tiny spikes emerging here and there. Time will tell...

I've included one picture of what the plant looked like the day I brought it home and two of how it looks now. I hope I will get to post another picture of it blooming in a few months :)

That plant looks great! Really robust. On a plant like that, losing some leaves and even roots is no big deal. Clearly it's growing well. These are tough little plants. Looking forward to blooms this spring!

Wow, I may put that in my wishlist for my next Ecuagenera order. What a plant.

I don't know if they still have them, but purchase price was only $20.00.

I looked at my plants a week ago and got a nice surprise. One of them has a spike. The photo is a week or two old and it looks now like it’s about a week short of flowering. It’s a surprise because I thought I wasn’t going to get any more flowers and it’s mid-summer here now - very late for a sarco I understand.

Interestingly, I bought about 6 sarcos direct from Barita about 18 months ago and after about a year of indifferent growth one flowered in season but the rest did not. I put 4 in lava rock and left the flowering one and one other in Barita’s mix, which is a blend of inorganic media. This one is the other one left in Barita’s mix. I guess the ones I put in scoria didn’t like the disturbance and that shut any chance of late flowering down.

The ones in lava rock are nonetheless doing well. There’s a bit of sphagnum to slow the drying out, but they pretty much get watered daily. We are having a wet summer so life is easy for them.

Wow, I would definitely not expect one to be blooming now in the southern hemisphere but the hybrids that I see all have Sarco hartmannii or fitzgeraldii as dominant so a limited subset of what's possible. (I know that ceceliae is a summer bloomer, and my falcatus also tends to bloom late, I am sure there are others that bloom late) I wonder what its parentage might be - maybe with later blooming species that might have influence. Barita does cutting-edge breeding.

And it’s out
 

Now it’s open.
Unseasonal is good. There isn’t much else flowering here.

A couple of leaves on the left have some issues. I’m hoping it’s just sunburn, though they are tough little plants and I doubt it’s going to lead to much.

Cheers

That is a beauty! As for the leaves... sometimes they drop a few, Plant looks great.

:bowing Still (im)patiently waiting here...

Still early. I have one precocious one with a couple of flowers, but I don't expect much action for another month or 6 weeks. What is amazing to me is that this one is blooming for AaronOB in late summer! For me, the downside of Sarcochilus is that the season for them is short, usually not much more than a month of flowers.

I wonder if the breeders are starting to add in other species to extend the season. Cymbidium breeders did that - the season for those used to be mostly January-February to about April, and now there are some Cyms (different ones) from September to June. AaronOB has access to one of the top Sarco breeders in the world, Barita. In a few years maybe SVO will have some of those new ones, or their progeny,

Actually I don’t have access. No-one does. Barita doesn’t allow visitors, has no sales outlet, doesn’t do open days. Strictly wholesale, online or export. It’s also rare to see them for sale locally. This year a couple of the local nurseries had small tables of Barita sarcos for sale when flowering but it was the usual situation we see with garden centres selling orchids - unfamiliar plants with a reputation for difficulty, prices too high, no-one buying, most of the plants unsold till the flowers drop off, then no-one wanting to buy sad-looking little plants even at half price. I don’t know who takes the loss in this situation but I doubt either party will want to do it again. Aside from those, I’ve never seen a sarco for sale in this country. Maybe those who go to shows or clubs see them?

Wow! How does Barita get their beauties into the market? SOMEBODY has to be buying them.

Speculation on my part.
I’d say most are exported.
They sell online through their website.
And they sell on EBay.
They may do shows - I rarely get to orchid shows so I don’t know.

I think as a business having a no-visitors policy would make sense in their location as Kulnura is a bit of a hidden place so not much through traffic. There would be no sense having the infrastructure to handle visitors if they rarely occur.

It’s the same problem with all orchids here. Everything has been flattened by the phalaenopsis wave. I used to see oncidiums, cattleyas and nobile or hardcane dendrobiums for sale occasionally in hardware stores or even in supermarkets but not any more. I guess most were bought as gifts and which would most people choose as a gift - a flowering phal or a sarco ? Same cost.

Sounds reasonable... Sunset Valley Orchids does sell their plants, I would guess that they get imported to the US as flasks. I don't think that we can buy any plants directly from Australia, at least not retail. Mountains of regulations on both sides of the ocean.

I'm hooked on these little plants.
I bought 2 more, will receive them next Tuesday.

Sarcochilus Kulnura Opus (E081)
Sarcochilus Kulnura Strange (E138)

The 2 I bought summer 2023 both have the beginning of 2 spikes.
These are Sarcochilus Kulnura Roundup 'Multi Spot' x Kulnura Secure 'Shapely' and Sarcochilus fitzgeraldii

I have the 2 original Sarcochilus I bought this summer flowering. How are yours performing?

Showing you the flowers from Sarcochilus fitzgeraldi. The Kulnura cultivar needs a bit more time to fully open its flowers. Photo's from that one soon.

But today the fitzgeraldii.

https://i.imgur.com/7OfKWew.jpeg

I have quite a few buds... my Sarcos are mostly running late this year. So I wait...

Sweet! Can't wait to see they pictures.

After the first two I bought 2 other ones, no spikes so far, but I don't know how they were cultivated before I bought them. Maybe the are very late, or they skip this spring.

One that I DO have blooming now... the species Sarcochilus falcatus. This one seems happy mounted, somewhat shady. But in the morning sun, brilliant white.

It's beautiful! Thank you for sharing.

My fitzgeraldii got sun damage. The Sarco next to it didn't. The fitzgeraldii can't take much light, very late evening sun, just before sunset. Lesson learned.

Nothing for me so far.
Plant looks nice and healthy with a lot of new roots forming but no sign yet of a spike.
I put it in my wine fridge at 45 degrees every night for 6 weeks back in Nov/Dec.
We shall see..............

Smart! According to culture sheets I found day temperatures should be lower too during fall/winter.

More experienced members, correct me if wrong.


I brought them indoors end of October when night temps went below 10C = 50F.
Yours might be later as you exposed them to low night temperatures a lot later than here occurred naturally.

As far as I'm aware of they have a 8-10C temp difference during summer too, between day and night. I'm not familiar with your climate.

I live in a climate where I can give them whatever Mother Nature provides. (Frost free, winter nights pretty frequently get into the region of 4 deg C/40 deg F. Days usually in the 18-21 deg C/64-69 deg F range but sometimes cooler or warmer) So year-to-year fluctuations in when it gets chilly may shift blooming time. Rain pattern is also uncertain and variable, they get watered with sprinklers when it's dry for more than a few days, but if we get a week of rain, they get wetter than usual.