Project 2017: Rupicolous Laelias

[SaraJean]

Originally Posted by estación seca

It's the increased water with moist sphagnum. They are wet all summer, but people have assumed growing on rocks means they're dry. Cattleya new growth turns black when it's underwatered. People mistakenly think it's rotting and water less. They turn black faster, and people assume they overwatered.

That’s the truth. Mine was watered sometimes daily, at least every other day, last summer and I thought that was good enough. I guess not. I can’t believe how great it’s been doing in the sphag. It has been going so well that I picked up a few more at Redland fest. Couldn’t pass them up, they were a good price. 3 of the 5 are imports from Brazil and all are in sphag and all are doing great. Lots of new roots, new growth, and all are nice and plump. It’s my first time dealing with imports from a different hemisphere but so far so good

[Leucadian]

I took some pictures of the rupic house at Andy's open house recently, and thought they would be good to share. It's a small area, outside, but covered for protection from the rain if it ever comes. About 20' x 30' maybe. The first photo is at the entrance, and the last 3 are plants mounted on rocks (marked not for sale).

I've got 9 rupics but none on rocks. L. sanguiloba is in bud, others are mostly growing OK.

[SaraJean]

Originally Posted by Leucadian

I took some pictures of the rupic house at Andy's open house recently, and thought they would be good to share. It's a small area, outside, but covered for protection from the rain if it ever comes. About 20' x 30' maybe. The first photo is at the entrance, and the last 3 are plants mounted on rocks (marked not for sale).

I've got 9 rupics but none on rocks. L. sanguiloba is in bud, others are mostly growing OK.

Those pics are delightful! I might have to send them an email for a couple I am looking for.

Weather here has been hot, heat index between 100-115F, rainy, and humid. I’m keeping my little guys nice and bright and they seem to like to hang out under my Catasetums, hopefully that’s enough light. Also everyone is loving the sphagnum moss. I accidentally smashed my pot with the L. briegeri in it last week and there were some nice fat new roots in there with no rotting. And can we just take a moment and appreciate how resistant these are to pests? When every surrounding orchid got hammered with mealies, spider mites, and aphids (thanks to neighbor upstairs with the infested mandevillas hanging over my grow space), I never found a single bug on any of my rupics.

Just going to do an update on my new purchases from May. The first three (L. longipes, crispata, and sanguiloba) were my bare root/no root Bela Vista purchase. The longipes is doing the best with two new growths that are maturing nicely and another two starting, but the other two have a couple of new growths each and all three are sending out nice roots. I was a bit nervous about establishing imports from a different hemisphere but they’re handling it well. The other two came from Orchid Eros and are a primary hybrid L. milleri X L. harpophylla, and a second sanguiloba (I grabbed a sanguiloba from Bela Vista accidentally, was trying to get a ghillanyi so now I’m looking for one of those). All of these are also in moss with just a small layer of LECA at the bottom.

[Selmo]

Have not updated much in the last few months as not much is going on with them. Just growing and matureing as they should. The crispata (flava) has three new growths with all having bud sheaths. And the gloedenana has two new growths with sheaths, so hopefully this year it will bloom. Not much else going on with them.

[stonedragonfarms]

Mine finally bloomed... It's in straight crushed slate (aside from the layer of moss that's accumulated around the bulbs that is); it gets watered every day, in addition to being misted 3x daily by my automated system (2 minutes before lights come on, 2 minutes late afternoon, 30 seconds about an hour after lights out); fans run 24/7; I've not measured light intensity, but as it's under 100w of CREE LED's, things are quite red.