Sophronitis cernua (Project 14 - Spring 2012)

[Wynn Dee13]

Originally Posted by The Mutant

Oh, it's too late now, the leaves are already gone (it wasn't one or two spots - they had several large, sunken in and dried out spots, but on the underside of the leaves. To be honest, I think both plants are infected with something, what I don't know yet, but I don't want it on the rest of the gang. These guys are going into extreme quarantine... I'm NOT happy with them.

I don't think it's necessary to put it in a clay pot, it has plenty of roots left (I removed a bunch of old dried out or mushy ones) and several new roots growing (except those I accidentally removed when tearing up the cork mount, which had started to deteriorate).

The one brown dried spot I see on the top of the one leaf looks like it got a sun burn. This won't hurt the plant but it is unsightly. Is this what the spots looked like on the undersides? Some of my plants have gotten spots like that from burning when I put them out in the spring and they were not used to the light yet. It can show on both sides of the leaf. The way the mount was hanging at the greenhouse could of allowed it to burn on the undersides of the leaves too. And if the nursery imported the plant from brazil at some point or something like that it could of gotten mechanical damage from the trip. Were the spots on the older growths? If the spots are on the older growths, dry and light brown like the one spot in your photo then I wouldn't worry about it. Remember our plants probably look a lot better than the ones in the wild blemish wise and most of the wild ones probably do a lot better!

[NatalieS]

Just out of curiosity, did anyone else besides me get the bulbo as a TC? I haven't seen any among the TCs people have been posting, but perhaps I've just missed some posts. Here are some pics of mine. It was mounted, so instead of taking it off the mount, I used someone else's idea and just plonked the mount into one of my very shallow pots and put some bark/perlite mix around it. I'm going to put some moss on the bark at some stage. It has two new growths.

[camille1585]

Looks nice! I wanted to get it, but knowing nothing about Bulbos I decided not too. If it had been project plant then at least there would have been 40 other people to share growing notes with!

[kavanaru]

I ordered both Bulbo. lobbii and sumatranum... Will pot a pic tomorrow of both, after transferring them to wooden baskets... And also Dendrobium lawesii

[NatalieS]

Originally Posted by kavanaru

I ordered both Bulbo. lobbii and sumatranum... Will pot a pic tomorrow of both, after transferring them to wooden baskets... And also Dendrobium lawesii

Nice - looking forward to the pics. I suppose the only thing I'm a little worried about with the bulbo is the watering. I've been spraying/misting daily and it's gotten warm enough for me to leave the window open a crack so it's getting plenty of fresh air. You'll have to fill me on your watering habits/routine for these.

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[kavanaru]

Originally Posted by NatalieS

Nice - looking forward to the pics. I suppose the only thing I'm a little worried about with the bulbo is the watering. I've been spraying/misting daily and it's gotten warm enough for me to leave the window open a crack so it's getting plenty of fresh air. You'll have to fill me on your watering habits/routine for these.

Actually, Bulbos like a lot of humidity, but also a free draining substrate... A wooden basket with a water retentive mix provides the prefect balance for me... Watering once per week (twice if too hot!)

They also do not like too much sun! Grow it more like Phalaenopsis (both light and watering) and you will be fine with it!

By the way, very nice idea with the bonsai pot!

[The Mutant]

Originally Posted by camille1585

Sorry for having freaked you out about your Soph!

The spots on it don't look bad though, unless you cut them off before the photo shoot. I'm surprised you got such banged up plants, I had heard that this was a good place to shop.

It's not that surprising considering how they were "packed". This is how the package looked like when I opened it: Newspaper, packing peanuts, Soph and Phal with mounts lying directly (bare) in the packing peanuts, more packing peanuts, newspaper. They must have been pretty jostled around lying directly in the packing peanuts like that. Maybe I should be impressed that they survived at all instead.

Originally Posted by Wynn Dee13

The one brown dried spot I see on the top of the one leaf looks like it got a sun burn. This won't hurt the plant but it is unsightly. Is this what the spots looked like on the undersides? Some of my plants have gotten spots like that from burning when I put them out in the spring and they were not used to the light yet. It can show on both sides of the leaf. The way the mount was hanging at the greenhouse could of allowed it to burn on the undersides of the leaves too. And if the nursery imported the plant from brazil at some point or something like that it could of gotten mechanical damage from the trip. Were the spots on the older growths? If the spots are on the older growths, dry and light brown like the one spot in your photo then I wouldn't worry about it. Remember our plants probably look a lot better than the ones in the wild blemish wise and most of the wild ones probably do a lot better!

The leaf you could see had several more spots on the underside as well which was why I cut it off. If I was certain it wasn't anything harmful for the Soph, I would've left it no matter how unsightly the leaves looked, but I didn't dare risk it, especially since the Phal has similar spots.

[The Mutant]

So, here they are in all their over potted glory! I've run out of small pots and haven't ordered any new ones (which I should have, silly me) so to compensate for my errors, I packed the pots with packing peanuts. The Soph has a lot of roots, but they're all very short so I kind of just placed it on top of a bark and perlite mix. I hope this little guy will survive all I've put it through, and I also hope the Phal stuartiana will since I cut of most of its new leaf (the black spot it had, had a large yellow area around it).

Here they are:

[Rowangreen]

Wow, Mutant if your soph is as big as it looks in the first picture (compared to your hand) then it is huge! I think my plant could hide under the biggest leaf pot and all! Hope it turns out it is just a bit battered and all is well.

[NatalieS]

Originally Posted by kavanaru

Actually, Bulbos like a lot of humidity, but also a free draining substrate... A wooden basket with a water retentive mix provides the prefect balance for me... Watering once per week (twice if too hot!)

They also do not like too much sun! Grow it more like Phalaenopsis (both light and watering) and you will be fine with it!

By the way, very nice idea with the bonsai pot!

Cheers! Bonsai were my first horticultural obsession so I have plenty of lovely pots and stands sitting around. I've found a lot of the growing/caring skills very transferable to orchids. I'm also hoping the blue pot will complement the yellow flowers - providing I get it to bloom.

Thanks for the growing tips! I have it in a north-east window. I was able to grow and bloom african violets very well in the same position and I've read this is a good indication of whether or not there are sufficient light levels for most orchids to grow happily. Do you think that will work for the bulbo?