Ornithophora radicans

[toshie]

Mine is in a north-facing window (the equivalent to your south), but the window is partially shaded by a tree. So it gets a few hours of morning sun and a few hours of afternoon sun - no midday sun, but still bright. I haven't had it through a winter yet.

I miss California - I lived in SF for 18 years and went to UC Berkeley in the 80s, and then I worked for Kaiser Permanente.

[unhappykat]

I will try to grow one indoors this coming year instead of outside then. Maybe its just the moisture along with the heat that stresses them out. Thank you for your help.

[quiltergal]

I got one of these little cuties from a fellow society member. It's a division off of his specimen sized plant. Mine is potted in very fine fir bark with a bit of chopped sphag mixed in. It's in a south window under T5s and gets watered and fed once a week. It just finished blooming and is currently kicking out 2 new growths.

[ronaldhanko]

Here's a close-up of the flowers. They are tiny in comparison to the plant. There is another plant listed on Ebay, by the way. Noticed it last night when I was looking through their listings.

[SuzCC]

I looked up the care instructions for Ornithophora radicans and it says it needs 80% humidity. That's close to tropical rainforest conditions, and difficult to reproduce outside a greenhouse. I grow my orchids on the windowsill. I was seduced by Ornithophora at an orchid show last fall, paid a lot of $ for it only to see it die leaf by leaf. I got to see the beautiful little flowers (plant was in spike when I got it) but I'm afraid it is giving up the ghost. If I mist it daily, will it survive?

[toshie]

I mist mine daily, with a very fine mister.
I have a question for those who have seen one bloom.
Do the stems (between the bud and the spike) turn a little light brown while the buds are developing? I nearly had a heart attack when I noticed this last week. The buds are still getting bigger, and it still looks healthy. But we have just had major hot weather (many days over 45C / 114F, and of course huge fires here in Victoria.

[RSS]

Mine is growing inside 65-99% humidity and doing fine.

As for the spike, I don't recall, but I think I would have remembered something like that. The temps could have dried the stem out a little. Just a guess. Hopefully they will open with no harm.

[toshie]

Oh Joy!!!

I woke up yesterday to find tiny little blooms! I think the colouring of the stems is normal, because the colour is exactly the same as part of the flower.

There is a faint fragrance.

This weekend, I am going to be wrestling with learning how to take macros of these blooms.

Cheers,

Deb

[SuzCC]

Does anyone put this plant in a terrarium since it seems to need 80-90% humidity? I started misting mine every day but at this point most of the leaves have dropped and i fear it is the point of no return.

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[quiltergal]

Mine is growing in about 60-70% RH and doesn't seem to mind at all. I never mist, gets watered once a week like everything else, and it's growing like crazy.