Brassidium Gilded Urchin 'Ontario' HCC/AOS

[james mickelso]

You can use a technique I have been trying with phals and the bonsai world has used for decades. Get some copper wire like 14 or 16 gage wire at the hardware store. Heat it over a gas stove until it turns green or heats up nicely. You can use a propane plumbers torch too. When the wire is heated up nicely, quench it under water. It will be very pliable for one maybe two bendings then be hard again. Make twice the length of the spike when fully grown. Push the wire into the media next to the spike like you would a stake support. As the spike elongates, turn the wire around the spike just tightly enough to be able to change it's direction of growth. Use two pair of pliers so you don't put any mechanical stresses on the spike. Loose but not too loose. It will be like a spring around the spike. You don't need it to touch the spike but just to be able to slowly bend the spike as it grows,. I've seen some very attractive flowing phal spikes and the flowers patterned very nicely. Haven't done too many yet but as this batch of phal spikes grows will try it more. Very oriental looking.

[NYCorchidman]

Wow, that sounds like a great idea! Thanks you!

One thing I don't understand is when you said the copper wire will be pliable for one ore two bending. Don't you need to bend many times as the spike grows out??

[james mickelso]

Once the wire has become heated and then quenched in water, it is very pliable. As you wind the wire around the spike as it grows ( a very slow process) the wire once bent becomes rigid again at the bend. The wire is stuck in the potting mix next to the spike and as it grows, you bend the wire around it. It is a very very very slow process but from what I've seen of the finished flower spike/plant, it is worth the effort. I have one of the large white phals I'm waiting for the spike to start elongating and will try photographing the progress of this technique. If you've seen ikebana then you have an idea of the look I'm after. Instead of the flowers standing straight up from the plant or up and then curving down, imagine a flower spike and flowers that come out of the plant to one side, curve downward, around the front of the plant below the pot, and the last flower is staring you front on the other side of the plant. Hard to describe so when and if I can make it happen, you'll get a picture of it.