Yours looks really happy on the mount. :)

Mine are all potted and they need watering every day. I am not keeping up with my watering so my new thing is I am trying to see if I can drowned them. Hehehe. I water them and leave water in the saucers so I can wait a day before watering again. I am still behind and I have not drowned a catt yet.

That is what I do with my mounted one. I am going to mount the potted one right on the same mount as my other one, there is enough room.

Adding pictures. You can see the dry roots on the left (formally potted) clipped those off and mounted on second picture.

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Attachment 123599

Mine is so unhappy in its pot since I had to bring it inside for the winter... probably going to throw it on a mount soon. Poor guy. :(

Wintergirl, that looks very nice!

Good luck with mounting your orchid, twinofmunin. Mine seem to do best in the vanda baskets and large chunks of red lava rock.

I just bought yet another C. Mini Purple. Every time I see a walkeriana primary hybrid, I am tempted.

Hi, an update on my Walkeriana, X Walkeriana semi-alba.

It was outside under a shade cloth all spring/summer/early fall. It is now inside near a large window facing east.

The leaves are crisp and thick, the roots look good, and many are white. It is still in the little plastic pot it came in.

One of the large leaves is new. I water once a week or less.

a photo:
http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a1...psfhemsugm.jpg

Looks good!

I still can't get rid of those hard water stains on the smaller leaves.

Your plant is so beautiful I didn't notice the water spots until you mentioned it.

Looks very good.

I have a mini purple I got in 2014 and it is still not looking like it's going to bloom any time soon. It does put up a new growth yearly. It is in a basket with lava rock also, but it just doesn't seem to be happy. I water it every 2 or 3 days when the rocks are dry and I use kelp max once a month and inococur (spelling?) once a month temps are average, under t-5s, good humidity. Don't know what I'm missing to make it happy.

Is this what I think it is?

That would be new growth, I believe the blooms come out from the leaf area.

Hopefully! :)

---------- Post added at 11:05 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:03 AM ----------

Mine have always done well in the set up but your conditions may be different. Sometimes, what works for one person will not work for someone else due to their conditions. I know that many people mount these but the one I bought from Andy's just couldn't sustain good roots mounted. It needed the rock to hold more humidity in between.

---------- Post added at 11:24 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:05 AM ----------

The report:
I lost the one that was a bag-baby from Lowes. It wasn't very strong and the pill-bugs finished it off by eating all the roots (The pill bugs did quite a bit of damage to my orchids before I exterminated them).
The one from Andy's is just starting new growth. From my reading, the 'Pendative' from Hausermann's is possibly a dolosa but since there is still debate, I am going to continue to include it. It is also getting new growth. :)

Not in species like walkeriana and nobilior, theirs come straight from the rhizome

You mean off to the side or bottom? Not off the top? I have both type of plants but they haven't bloomed yet. In the pictures I have seen of the walkeriana it looks like a branch comes out of the top of the p.bulb and the flower buds come off of that.

Walkerianas and hybrids need huge amounts of water and light during the growing season, but also need to dry between waterings. I wonder whether T5s are enough. In lava rock you could probably water every day during the summer.

I have been growing mine in plastic Vanda baskets with the red lava rock. I water every other day unless we get a good rain. The trick to red lava rock is making certain that, when you water, you give the roots enough time to absorb the water that they need, just as with mounted orchids. Some of my orchids that absorb water more slowly, I soak for a bit. You can usually tell when the orchid root has absorbed enough water as it will turn green. Another trick is that when you first put an orchid in red lava rock, you stake it very well so that it will not wiggle in the pot and then you let the pot sit undisturbed for a time until the roots have had a chance to grow enough to steady the orchid. If one moves an orchid around while the roots are just starting to grow, one can injure the growing tips. Lava rock is a little rougher so it is easier to injure the tips but this happens in bark, too. Once an orchid is established in the rock, the roots usually will grasp the rock and hold everything quite firmly in place.

I just bought my second; a Walkeriana X Percivaliana. I have no idea what the flowers will look like. Anyone Know? I am assuming white, or blue, or white and blue. Maybe pink. Who knows! My first Walkeriana is doing fine, growing, and spent the day outside yesterday.

That should be nice! Mine are getting new growth! They know that it is spring!

I am finding mine challenging to grow. I got two and one has slipped away, the other is trying, but suffering.I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but I'm still trying.

Heat, brilliant light, water, with drying between waterings. Less water when cool.

My two plants are awakening right now.

Mine seem to like it better mounted. I spray the roots once a day.

When he spoke to our orchid society in February 2017, Alan Koch had this to say about C. walkeriana and nobilior:

Cattleya walkeriana blooms twice yearly if it has uniformly longish days and not too much day length variation. In metro Los Angeles it blooms twice a year; in Sacramento, only once. It needs to become completely dry between watering. It grows on twigs or rocks, so it does best in a clear pot, mounted or in a shallow basket. It also has photosynthetic roots. It walks out of any container, and often blooms best on the growths hanging off the edge. It imparts twice-yearly blooming to lots of its hybrids.

Cattleya nobilior must dry from December to February. It needs a horizontal mount, not a vertical mount.

My nobilior is potted but with only a small bit of bark in plastic, it is doing really well.

My one that died was originally mounted, but when I noticed the newest roots drying up when they attached to the mount I figured It was not damp enough, so I potted it up and no new roots started and it just went down hill from there.

---------- Post added at 11:50 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:48 PM ----------

How much heat ? Is 57 F at night too cool ? As to light, does it need to be right under the T-5s ? It is now off to the side where it get some of the light.

I think 57 F / 14C would be fine at night. What are the days like? It gets pretty warm in habitat even in the winter.

Yes, I would move it to as much light as possible if you're growing it under lights.

i agree. I have three, and although they are all growing, the healthiest plant with the best roots is mounted. I am considering moving my potted C. Walkeriana to a mount.

If you can, place any mounted plant in a location where it can benefit from long, all day rains. Rain allows the plant maximum time to soak in water and rehydrate.

Did the walkeriana have new growth starting when it was removed from the mount? If not, it might just need to get established again to recover. Once it sends out new pseudobulbs and those get new roots, it should be fine. With the increase of light signalling spring, that should happen fairly quickly.

Here is a bit of culture information:
Cattleya walkeriana - Cattleya Source

The one that was mounted is the one that died. the other was bare root when I got it and I potted it in a small plastic pot. It has a tiny new growth started, but just does not look thrifty.
ES, days are around 70 F right now until it gets warmer outside. Heater is set at 70. I will move it under the lights

Good luck gngrhill! I lost one this past winter (it was the bag baby from Lowes). I plan to look for another one (and buy it before they are half-dead!). :)

I don't know if I want to try again . Apparently I don't have the right conditions or I'm doing something wrong.
It's kind of up the same alley as my mini purple which I know you have had good luck with. I've had mine for three years now and it is also struggling. New growth, but leaves look stressed and doesn't look like it wants to bloom any time soon. I am apparently missing something with these little Catts.

I wish you could go experience what their habitat is like. That really helps understanding what they like. I was in C. nobilior habitat in the winter without knowing it at the time - I was there to see cacti and succulents.

In their winter the trees they grow on drop their leaves. They get a lot more sun in the winter than in the summer. Their winter nights might be near 60 F / 15.5C, but days are a lot warmer - usually into the 80s F / 26-32C, and most winter days are cloudless.

Your 70 F / 21C - by - day - for - weeks - on - end - winter is pushing it. Yes, home growers keep them alive like that, but it isn't ideal. These are warm-growing orchids. Again, people will write to say theirs do OK on the windowsill in the winter, but 70 F is not keeping them happy - just alive. Any additional insult can push them over the edge, even something a healthy and happy plant would tolerate without problems.

The take home would be, can you put some of your warm-growing orchids onto a heating mat for the winter? And I would put C. walkeriana into the brightest winter spot you have.

In the summer they get rained on almost every day. It is very hot, often 120 F / 49C or higher! It is suffocatingly humid. It does not cool down much at night. They grow in bright shade under tree canopies. The climate is like New Orleans in the summer, but even hotter.

Although they get wet all the time, their roots are on branches, so they are exposed to the air.

Go back to read what catwalker wrote here on Orchid Board about C. walkeriana. (Think about that username and where it came from?) Almost everybody with a problem got told to water more during the summer.

If it's in a pot, and the insides stay soggy wet, this is a real problem. This is why people like to grow them mounted, or a basket with no or next to no medium. But then you really do have to water every day.

I goofed up with my C. walkeriana coerulea this winter. The photo of the plant when it was happy is here.

It had dozens of growths in a 3" / 8cm pot. I intended to mount it last fall but didn't get around to it. I was super busy at work one warm week and didn't water it enough. Then it got relatively cold here. The plant began dying back pseudobulb by pseudobulb during cold weather. I didn't want to water it much, and it kept shriveling. I watered during a warmer spell and it died back even more. I decided what I was doing was killing it, so I went to mount it. We had had a few nice warm days and the sunroom was up into the 80s F. I saw a small growth making new roots.

I took the plant apart. There was one tiny pseudobulb left alive out of those dozens. I mounted it onto a piece of mesquite with some sphagnum moss as a pad. I would not have used the sphagnum with a healthy larger plant; they don't grow into moss in habitat. But I have to work, and I can't always water when I want to.

We've been warm for a while, and my sunroom has had 40%-50% humidity. That tiny pseudobulb is already putting out two new growths. I think there's a good chance it's going to survive.

The moral: LOTS of water during warm weather; warm winters; not much water when it's cool; mounting really is better than in a pot for many people.

My other C. walkeriana in S/H is doing well. I've read people have had trouble with them in S/H. I'm guessing it's not enough warmth.

Now that I look at the photo of my plant on a mount, the undersides of the leaves appear to have spider mite damage. This is an artifact from a cheap phone camera. Those blemishes are permanent wrinkling from leaves that got too dry for too long, not spider mite damage.

Thank you ES, for your excellent info. My humidity is running 70 percent since I changed my humidifier filters :). I changed my heater settings to 72F days and 62F nights. I know that's not much of a change, but it's the best I can do because I have cool growers in the same room. I can put it on a heat mat, and I did move it under the t-5s and I can raise it up closer to the lights. Maybe they will perk up when the weather gets warmer.

I do want to mention that C. nobilior comes from a hotter and drier part of South America than does C. walkeriana. Harry told me that C. walkeriana is ok in cool (below 50F) winter weather if it stays dry. I believe he even mentioned they can handle near freezing temps, but they must be bone dry!

---------- Post added at 12:31 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:19 PM ----------

This last post made me go back to read through Harry's posts. Not sure if these have already been posted in one of the previous 44 pages (:yikes:) of discussion in this thread!!

Here is one about general growing tips: http://www.orchidboard.com/community...alkeriana+cold

Some walkeriana vs. nobilior discussion: http://www.orchidboard.com/community...alkeriana+cold

I think we posted the Cattleya tips but it doesn't hurt at all to post them again since they are probably long lost.... Thanks!

I haven't posted pics of my bag baby 'Carmela' in a while and things are definitely happening with it. My first inclination is that these are all new growths, but my recent experience with my nobilior has left me wise enough to reserve judgement for the time being!

Update: Well, I got my Walkeriana on 5/16/16 and now it is 8/7/17 so I thought I would give an update. The temperatures are in the 80s and 90s, sometimes the 70s with cloud cover. (In the winter I can leave them out for quite some time, in November or so they come in and are treated as windowsill plants). The nights are cooler. Rain now about every third day. Rain is usually in the evening. I elected to use lecca in a net pot, with a top dressing of bark. I water about 3 times a week (if no rain) with a fine mist from a mister I set up. It is kept in a hanging basket in a shade house outside (the shade now is from a tree because I took the shade cloth off the beginning of August when it gets cooler). The bulbs are plump and the roots are growing really well. I think it is still several years until blooming. I got a walkeriana X percivaliana as well. It is also doing well.

Anyway, here is the Walkeriana semi-alba.
http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a1...pspryux7sb.jpg

Big plump bulb. They are all like that! Even the oldest is not very puckered.
http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a1...psn2qfd1do.jpg

Size, a regular AA battery for size comparison
http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a1...psigvchktx.jpg

Good job Optimist. Here is my update. Remember how I had trouble with my SVO plant and I mounted it with another c walkeriana? Well here they are. They both have new growth but as you can see the SVO plant still looks crappy.

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