Stenoglottis longifolia care

[neophyte]

Thanks! I'll (try to) stop worrying too much about this one.

[neophyte]

My Stenoglotis ended up producing 4 leaves (not including one or two small initial ones that have already browned), one of which has started to die back. Is it too early for the leaves to start dying back? When should the inflorescence start to appear?

[Roberta]

It's pretty early to be losing foliage - I just took a look at mine, and foliage is still growing, no sign of spikes yet, don't really expect spikes until September or October based on history of my plants. Are you keeping it damp? It needs to be... mine stay pretty wet. Sngl. woodii and Sngl. macloughlinii have both just started to open (within the last week or so), those tend to be much earlier than longifolia, fimbriata, and their hybrid Venus.

[neophyte]

Yikes, I think mine has been too dry. Will the tuber at least survive to next year if it hasn't been happy this growth season, do you think?

[Roberta]

I think the tuber will be OK. I don't dry mine out in winter at all, even as the leaves dry up... since new growth starts soon after the old fades. So keep watering it.

[neophyte]

Sounds good. If I want to repot, it would be when the leaves are all gone, right? I think I want to add some more peat/cactus mix; a lot of the organic portion has washed out, so the potting mix is currently mostly perlite, which seems to dry out slightly faster.

[Roberta]

I would wait a bit to repot... wait until it loses leaves, also when the weather cools off if possible. Perlite won't hold nearly enough moisture to keep it happy. I use small bark with some cactus mix (peat would work well too) So if it loses leaves while weather is still warm, pot anyway to give it the moisture that it needs.

[Herrania]

Is there much difference between longifolia and woodii winter care? My longifolia has had all leaves go brown, but the woodii still has a few green leaves and what looks like a new start ready at the base.

[Roberta]

I treat them all the same... keep watering. Maybe reduce it just a bit (I water everything less in the winter) but don't dry it out. Even when the longifolia goes dormant, it isn't for very long.

[CisTransGlauca]

Originally Posted by Roberta

For growing medium, I use my terrestrial mix... imprecisely toss pumice, perlite, sand, and cactus mix together to make a brew that drains well. I have grown it in fine bark too, but the terrestrial soil mix seems to work better. Other than that, bright shade or filtered sun. I water it all year - when it dies back after blooming the new shoots tend to appear within a few weeks or a month so it doesn't really "rest", at least not long enough to change one's culture. It doesn't particularly care about water quality... mine gets city water, I am sure worse than yours. Generally I have found that most terrestrials aren't particularly fussy about water quality - after all, they grow in "dirt", as opposed to epiphytes that, in nature, get pure rainwater on the sides of trees. I repot this one rarely - seems to do better with minimal disturbance.

Running the risk of hijacking this thread: I´ve also recently acquired a Stenoglottis longifolia, and was wondering if the potting media I´ve potted it in is suitable? It´s about 1.5 parts fine orchiata bark to 2 parts peat based potting soil and with some part pumice and perlite. See the attached photos. It´s grown fairly bright indoors under lights with average temps now during the fall being about 20 degrees Celsius. I´m worried the mix might be too water retentive. It´s potted in a ~10 cm pot.