Australian terrestrials

[HeyMrDeej]

Perfs. Thank you for the guidance.

[estación seca]

Winter-rainfall, summer-dormant tuberous plants usually begin making a root system before putting up shoots. It's often triggered by the first good rain. I have a lot of South African winter rainfall bulbs. As soon as nights get cool I soak them once, then begin regular watering when shoots appear.

[Roberta]

I have found that my terrestrial tubers don't do anything until they start getting watered lightly. Then once the shoots start to appear I kick up the watering so that they stay pretty damp. Applies to both European and Australian terrestrials. I find that my Pterostylis curta (the only Pterostyils that I have had much success with, have at least gotten survival from Pterostylis x furcillata seems to like the same pattern )has a shorter dormancy - I start watering lightly in early August and get a lot of growth by late September) The European and other Aussie ones I start watering lightly in mid- to late- October, when the nights start to cool off.

I heard an excellent talk by Gary Yong Gee (Five Cities Orchid Society, California central coast, on Zoom) . He said that in Australia many of the Pterostyls species (and lots of other beautiful terrestrial orchids) also are difficult to cultivate. So I don't feel so bad about my failures.

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

I have grown a good number of Asian, Australian, European, and South African tuberous terrestrial orchids to be able to provide the specific growth pattern for a fair number of species.

According to what I have observed, tuberous orchids grow their non-tuberous parts of the plant (shoots/leaves/roots) in a particular order and that order is the following:

1) shoots
2) leaves
3) roots

The tuberous parts form from their root system, so you are under a lot pressure to keep their root system healthy and intact.

As a side note, I learned how to grow epiphytic orchids through learning how to grow terrestrial tuberous ones. This is where I found out how crucial the root system is to ALL orchids’ well-being. Your long-term success of a particular species or hybrid depends on how well you keep their root systems healthy.

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

Photographic evidence of what I describe:

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

Notice the leaves are bigger than the roots on this Thelymitra rubra tuberoid that had broken dormancy

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

This Diuris drummondii has the same growth pattern.

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

The original post got wonky. Here’s the photo:

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

Thelymitra frenchii is a late grower, but same growth pattern - shoot, leaves, roots.

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

Diuris behrii