Dryadella elata reblooming

[smittensd]

My Dryadella elata is reblooming! It's been putting on new growth nicely since I remounted it in January. Am happy to see I'm doing something right.


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[No-Pro-mwa]

Wow nice large plant.

[u bada]

second that, beautifully grown plant, congrats on bloom!

[WhiteRabbit]

Nice!

[smittensd]

Thank you all. I'm only responsible for the new growth, and not killing it! I got this plant from Andy's Orchids this fall as part of a specimen piece with a Pleurothallis segoviensis and a Lepanthes manabina. I had to separate them when the Dryadella started taking over the mount they were on. I recently put the other 2 in a terrarium to try to keep the humidity more consistent. Hopefully they bounce back.


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[Paphy]

Very nice plant indeed. Congrats on the rebloom. I just got one of these. Nowhere near size of yours... yet. What kind of light, fert sched, etc are you giving yours?

I heard it's shade and more shade for this one so that's what I'm trying. It -is- looking healthy, and -is- putting out growth but not like, fast. Just lumbering. It's young though. But maybe I should shift it to little more light area. Did you increase light to stimulate the blooming?

So, also I heard it's normally a summer bloomer.. and, well, it's not summer yet! and here you are with blooms already! and we live reasonably close, 90 miles maybe, with much similar conditions. I'm in Huntington Bch about 4 mi. from beach. I'm wondering if there's a chance I may get this young one to bloom this year.

Anyway thanks for sharing and love to hear how you're getting such good results with yours.

[smittensd]

Originally Posted by Paphy

Very nice plant indeed. Congrats on the rebloom. I just got one of these. Nowhere near size of yours... yet. What kind of light, fert sched, etc are you giving yours?



I heard it's shade and more shade for this one so that's what I'm trying. It -is- looking healthy, and -is- putting out growth but not like, fast. Just lumbering. It's young though. But maybe I should shift it to little more light area. Did you increase light to stimulate the blooming?



So, also I heard it's normally a summer bloomer.. and, well, it's not summer yet! and here you are with blooms already! and we live reasonably close, 90 miles maybe, with much similar conditions. I'm in Huntington Bch about 4 mi. from beach. I'm wondering if there's a chance I may get this young one to bloom this year.



Anyway thanks for sharing and love to hear how you're getting such good results with yours.

Thanks Paphy!

I got this plant in mid-December in full bloom.

It started putting on new growth almost immediately upon remounting and moving into a slightly more moderate light. It had been in higher light as part of the specimen piece.


Light:

My orchid corner is north and west facing windows that depending on the time of year gets 0-60 minutes of direct sunlight from the west in the early evening. The rest of the day without supplemental lighting it's low to medium light the rest of the day.

I supplement my naturally available light with a 65 watt CREE LED full spectrum flood light mounted near the ceiling (2-10 feet away from the plants depending on what shelf they are on. The light is on a timer, on for about 8-10 hours per day.

Water:

I do not water this plant as often as it would like (my indoor humidity stays ranges from 30%-60% percent during the day). But some of the new growth is pleated so I know it's too dry.

I water this and my other mounted orchids every other day or or every 3 days. I'm experimenting with adding ollas to some of the mounted orchids that dry out quickly like this one to make water more available to them.

Fertilizer:

I water with filtered tap water. One watering a week I use Peter's orchid fertilizer at 1/4 strength. I add Super Thrive once a month to the mix for plants not in bloom.

Temperatures:

We are about 7 miles from the ocean here so it's fairly mild most of the year except for the fall and the temperature inside stays between 70 in winter and 85-90 in late summer/fall as we only have a window ac unit. Our windows are open most of the year, but I run a fan in the corner just to keep a constant airflow.

[Paphy]

Hi smitten. Thnx for your detailed culture info.

Well, the first thing that came to mind about your elata is the bloom schedule you're having as this is what prompted my culture query. From most of the info I've read it's seems to me there's quite a bit of discrepancy on when this plants normal bloom cycle actually is. Andy's site gives it as Fall/Winter so it's actually alarming to me your little one is spiking here now in early spring. Somebody should re-write the books! Because most of the written info I could gleen from says elata is a late spring thru summer bloomer! So, kudos to you on your care, apparently you've encouraged it to 'step outside the box'.

It's also comforting, of a sort, to know your elata is not fussy about water. I'm not sure what ph you have down there, if what you're using is well water or sourced from Colorado River or wherever but up here in OC our ph is notably high. Ridiculously high actually. So high in fact that Fred Clarke of SVO (Vista, CA which is close to the middle of we two in proximity) recommends, for So Cal applications, an imbalanced fert for tap water in maintenance growing. Something in range of say, 10-20-10, or any ratio where there is higher phosphorus count to counterbalance the high ph.

I say this because if I remember right, Peter's is a balanced fert, 20-20-20 I believe, not sure. And I'm assuming your Super Thrive to have a nitrogen emphasis mix for a foliage growth stimulant. Since you're getting good results if I were to guess I'd say the chances are you're using well water and you need not fret about high ph, but just guessing here..

The amount of light you are giving is equally arresting. This indicates to me it may be just fine to move mine to a stronger source, that it doesn't necessarily need to be coddled in this respect. It's interesting because even Andy's tag gives this one's light requirements as: 'SH', meaning shade. But here again, there are myriads of shades of shade, although he does expand a little on that saying 'indirect low light, slight shade'. I'm not sure if in your opinion this is what you're providing it with or not, but it does sound as if for the most part you have indirect natural light, somewhat bright I would assume given your north/west orientation and that this light is married with artificial light tends to sound like fairly strong light actually. If you don't mind my asking, how close to your LED do you have this plant? meaning, which 'shelf' is it that you maintain it on? the 2' or the longer length?

And the last thing you remarked on regarding temp. is helpful as well. Andy's tag does give it as 'I', intermediate 55-85F, which as I understand it is his method of saying it has somewhat of a range of tolerance although it does prefer warmer conditions. Given it's indigenous locale in lower elevations in Columbia, and further testified to by the indoor environment you are giving 70 degree nights still sound quite warm to me. I just purchased my elata about 6 wks ago (it was living in very shady conditions, very low light) and since I've had it it's had some 50 F nights in that span, a couple few even dipping into high 40s. Doesn't seem to mind it at all. I bought it specifically so as to increase my chances of avoiding death. lol. We do get fairly cool winters at my location, sometimes as low as 35F but this is rare what with the norm more periods of mid-40s, and my idea was to move it inside if necessary when that time comes. That you say it was in full bloom in December leads me to conclude this plant, as far as Masdie's go, is actually quite hardy so possibly I won't have to move it.

Anyway, best of luck in this one's current bloom cycle and thanks for your feedback reply!

[smittensd]

Originally Posted by Paphy

Hi smitten. Thnx for your detailed culture info.



Well, the first thing that came to mind about your elata is the bloom schedule you're having as this is what prompted my culture query. From most of the info I've read it's seems to me there's quite a bit of discrepancy on when this plants normal bloom cycle actually is. Andy's site gives it as Fall/Winter so it's actually alarming to me your little one is spiking here now in early spring. Somebody should re-write the books! Because most of the written info I could gleen from says elata is a late spring thru summer bloomer! So, kudos to you on your care, apparently you've encouraged it to 'step outside the box'.



It's also comforting, of a sort, to know your elata is not fussy about water. I'm not sure what ph you have down there, if what you're using is well water or sourced from Colorado River or wherever but up here in OC our ph is notably high. Ridiculously high actually. So high in fact that Fred Clarke of SVO (Vista, CA which is close to the middle of we two in proximity) recommends, for So Cal applications, an imbalanced fert for tap water in maintenance growing. Something in range of say, 10-20-10, or any ratio where there is higher phosphorus count to counterbalance the high ph.



I say this because if I remember right, Peter's is a balanced fert, 20-20-20 I believe, not sure. And I'm assuming your Super Thrive to have a nitrogen emphasis mix for a foliage growth stimulant. Since you're getting good results if I were to guess I'd say the chances are you're using well water and you need not fret about high ph, but just guessing here..



The amount of light you are giving is equally arresting. This indicates to me it may be just fine to move mine to a stronger source, that it doesn't necessarily need to be coddled in this respect. It's interesting because even Andy's tag gives this one's light requirements as: 'SH', meaning shade. But here again, there are myriads of shades of shade, although he does expand a little on that saying 'indirect low light, slight shade'. I'm not sure if in your opinion this is what you're providing it with or not, but it does sound as if for the most part you have indirect natural light, somewhat bright I would assume given your north/west orientation and that this light is married with artificial light tends to sound like fairly strong light actually. If you don't mind my asking, how close to your LED do you have this plant? meaning, which 'shelf' is it that you maintain it on? the 2' or the longer length?



And the last thing you remarked on regarding temp. is helpful as well. Andy's tag does give it as 'I', intermediate 55-85F, which as I understand it is his method of saying it has somewhat of a range of tolerance although it does prefer warmer conditions. Given it's indigenous locale in lower elevations in Columbia, and further testified to by the indoor environment you are giving 70 degree nights still sound quite warm to me. I just purchased my elata about 6 wks ago (it was living in very shady conditions, very low light) and since I've had it it's had some 50 F nights in that span, a couple few even dipping into high 40s. Doesn't seem to mind it at all. I bought it specifically so as to increase my chances of avoiding death. lol. We do get fairly cool winters at my location, sometimes as low as 35F but this is rare what with the norm more periods of mid-40s, and my idea was to move it inside if necessary when that time comes. That you say it was in full bloom in December leads me to conclude this plant, as far as Masdie's go, is actually quite hardy so possibly I won't have to move it.



Anyway, best of luck in this one's current bloom cycle and thanks for your feedback reply!

Thanks! I'm really pleased with this plant and look forward to more blooms.

I misspoke on the fertilizer earlier I'm using Jack's 30-10-10. I don't remember the Ph of our city water or the source. I'll be switching to rodi once we get the system installed at home. Right now all the RO water is reserved for the reef tanks.

My thermometer/humidity guage has a 24 hour memory. It gets down to about 60 at night and as high as 85-90 on the warmest days so far. I think it would do fine outside. I got this specimen from Andy's and it was in the intermediate greenhouse under shade cloth.

This plant is about 5 feet from the fixture and is currently facing west and seems happier than when it was closer to the fixture.

I'm still very much a trial and error grower but I try to let the orchids be once I find a place they are happy.

[Tindomul]

Great blooms!