Mastering YOUR growing culture
 

I wanted a thread for discussion about the little ways we tweak our plants to thrive (give them what they need) in the homes they have (in your location and culture)

All good cultural guides will have a disclaimer that this just just what they do or just how it is in nature and you should adjust accordingly, but what does that mean to you


I have recently had out of season rains. And a lot of them. It rained for 6 of the last 9 days with almost no real sun. This happens sometimes here. Because of this phenomenon I have learned to grow my plants in a SUPER open mix with almost no organic materials. The only exceptions are the Bulbophyllum and they are still grown WAY more open then most other growers would.

I have started seeding my potted orchids with springtails as the extra moisture can allow fungus and mold to appear...they are harmless and will die if there is nothing to eat, they won’t ever harm my plants and I grow a culture of them so I have unlimited supply

Last tip I have found is to use leaf litter as much as I can. It not only allows the extra decay phenomenon which I believe adds materials for the plants but it lets good guys like spiders and anoles have a home and then they protect from the nastier pests

What have you leaned to adapt your culture to growing while still tailoring it to the plant?

Great thread DC. I'll provide something of substance once I get my act together here.
First thing I'll say is that where you and I grow it's really easy to sit back and let mother nature do most of the heavy lifting. I just took a peek at the shadehouse. OMG what a jungle! I tried preen on the ground this year to see if it would help with the weeds. I'll post a pic later and you can decide if it worked. I'm thinking I'm not going to be invited to bid to take over their ad campaign. :rofl:

I’m still getting used to my growing conditions here and adjusting.

My greenhouse in PA was more like you Florida growers’ conditions, but now, without one, I at least have a very long growing season outdoors here in NC and a relatively short winter windowsill period.

I have long been a proponent of very “open” media and lots of watering, but that can create more work for in-home growers. I guess you just have to set your priorities...

Ohio, where I live, is a fun place to grow tropical stuff. Winters are very dark and dreary and the home is cool. It can be brutally windy and bitterly cold...or forty degrees much of the winter. Summers are completely unpredictable...randomly choose three options: rainy or dry, cool or hot, everything in abrupt changes, or months of the same. We have had frosts in July, weeks of hot temperatures suddenly followed by very cold temperatures, weeks of temperatures in the sixties and low seventies with constant rain, and months of ninety-five degrees and no rain. There is no planning for it.

When I first started growing orchids, back in the late 1990's (according to photographs I recently found), I grew in bark. This effectively meant that the plants became dehydrated either because I did not water enough or because the middle never dried and all the roots died. In the summer, the orchid had to begin over again. After a couple of years, I realized that orchids grew on trees or rocks and the medium was just to hold the plant in the pot and keep the air humid around the roots so, when I saw the lava rock at a nursery...end of rotting roots. To prevent fungus issues, I add extra Calcium...need to prepare for those possible weeks of endless rain.

My other plants have always been potted in an abundance of perlite and allowed to go root-bound. I find that it helps to buy the tropical plants from places that have either the same climate or a colder climate and to buy them in the early summer (shipped after the cooler weather has passed and before the hotter temperatures arrive) to give them time to adjust. I learned that I do not fare well with outdoor fig trees so I have two fig trees in pots which enjoy a very indulged life of being brought into the home each winter. A few years ago, I added fluorescent lights to my set up. I enjoy the extra warmth as do the plants.

Growing plants is always a learning experience...I am always discovering new tricks to making them happier even after all these years. :)

Really good tips, Leaf, especially about getting plants already acclimated to colder temps.

This comment is completely unhelpful to the discussion but just reading the above makes me stressed and makes me glad I grow indoors. I won't feel so bad the next time I have to buy a light or pay my electric bill, the extra control is worth it :)

it is a good comment bc i know what you mean in the opposite...when i am drenched in sweat in late October and annoyed at my sandy soil....i remember that i am SOOOO glad it isn't snowing :)

That's a very interesting topic; there's so much that can be done differently from grower to grower, even in the same conditions.


Back when I started with orchid-keeping (9-10 years ago), my strategy was : put stuff in the garden under the trees so full sun doesn't burn, water when dry with tap water, repot when looking bad, take back inside and put wherever there's space during winter.

I had some success and some (mostly) failures. I still painfully remember that Phalaenopsis bellina coerulea SM/TOGA that I was gifted and killed in a matter of weeks.
Recently got 2 of those to prove myself I improved but that's another story.

Then I read more and more about orchids, learnt English (that helps to access and understand A LOT of valuable info), went to a few exhibitions and talked to people, etc.

I started getting my hands on specific genera instead of buying anything I could find discounted in stores, and ultimately became more aware of potting media, light and watering.
At this point I became pretty decent with a few Phal and Vanda species.

When I moved to my current location - 6 years ago if my memory serves me well - I had to get rid of most plants I had.
My parents got me a mini NOiD Phal that was a bathroom decoration, alone for years, before I got back into orchid frenzy again. That poor thing must've seen it all; neglect, no fertiliser, bad lighting, broken down media... Today it's a monster with 11 leaves, so I guess it's forgiving.

Then 3 years ago, I went to an orchid show nearby, and bought a Phal violacea and Phal Liodoro.
Pleased by reblooms and good growths, more and more plants were added, mostly Phal because I grew those in the past and was having good results.

Strong of this experiences, I knew how and when to repot, how to water, I got fertiliser, gave the plants the best possible spots; and most importantly sticked to orchids I knew would grow in my conditions.
That bathroom being south-oriented, with the counter-top about a meter or so away from the window, means that high light plants would not thrive and that my Phal got a rest period during winter due to sufficient light.


During the past 2 years, I started wondering how to get better orchids and experimented. Some ideas were/are total crap, some showed to be effective, here are a few:

Lava rocks in the bottom of pots provide nice aeration and drainage while maintaining humidity. That way the pots dry more evenly and I'm sure buried roots are not sitting in water or badly rotten media.

I started using bigger chunks of bark, mixed with long fibres Sphagnum and those lava rocks, as plants seemed to react better to faster wet/dry cycles and a more "open media".

Springtails and some soil mites randomly appeared. I kept them and let them roam free from pot to pot.
Mosses showed up as well, and I also let them grow.
I've never had a Fusarium/black rot/whatever outbreak, and I'm convinced that a healthy microbiome makes a happy and healthy plant.

I bought a better fertiliser. Simple enough yet life changing.

This year, I started using organic products that contain enzymes, acids, nutrients etc that are not in traditional fertilisers.

To go along with this and the microbiome thing, I also invested in "plant probiotics", with lots of helpful fungi and bacteria.

I also tried different wet/dry cycles for different plants. While my warm growing Phal seem to enjoy constant moisture, the deciduous species do better when they're dry for a few days once in a while.
My lowii is blooming for the 2nd time this year; both spikes were initiated after 4-5 days of drought. Coincidence or not, I'll try again next year to be sure.


While it's too early to be sure my current strategy is a winning one, I'm really trying to understand my plants and provide as many things as I can do, and let nature do it's thing.
I went from doing at random to doing with a purpose, using science to be a responsible plant dad. Now that I bought a grow light, my orchids can enjoy a full year of growth instead of being limited by a small window.

It's a never-ending learning process, and the Internet is such a wealth of knowledge, I'm in all honesty super stoked to see where things will go for the orchid growers community. It takes one person to come up with something (like S/H), and people everywhere can grow plants they couldn't touch before.


P.S.: My reply is all over the place but I stand by it.

An interesting topic. Thanks for the opportunity to think and chime in. One of the things that made me a more successful grower than when I first started... finally I stopped adapting to the plants. I can't keep track of all the different temperature requirements, the likes to stay moist, likes to dry out, etc. And after trying for a few years, decided I didn't like even attempting to do so.

So I get orchids I'm interested in. They adapt, or they don't. After using that cultural method for over a decade it's pretty well honed, and I don't have to think about it much. Turning to growing everything in semi-hydro or mounted was a real game-changer for me. It took away the moist vs dry out factor. If I give something a go in SH and it doesn't like it (usually have a two-year time limit before deciding it's not gonna work) I either mount it if I really want it, or give it away, or toss if it's pathetic. And I say "never will mount another plant" at least twice a year; I've learned I'm lying to myself, and just put more under the MistKing.

So everything has to grow in the same temperature range, year 'round, with only the occasional exception. It takes a LOT of loving a particular plant to make that exception. I know if I were to grow most of the Masdies it would require a separate area for them during hot months. Not willing, so far, regardless of how much I like them. Cymbs, I have only six, and I do drag them outside in mid fall to chill. Trying to get away from those that need the big chill. Anyone want a gigantic Cymb that needs a big chill next spring? :biggrin:

Basics... pretty much know what needs extra light, or less light, within reason. And more or less light is an easily adjustable part of the culture... looks too green, doesn't bloom, etc, give more light. Sunburn, less light.

Somewhere along the line, I moved from "I want that plant" to finding something I want, then first question is "Will that plant want me?" For me, it's similar to relationships and friendships... better figure that one out first because faking it doesn't work in the long run.

Yes, it makes sense to buy only plants that like my environment but, to be happy, I find that I need to have a Theobroma cacao, a Cinnamomum zeylanicum, those coffee trees, passionfruit vines, that Neem tree, pomegranate, the citrus trees, and the jasmines. I tried life without a Theobroma cacao as it just seemed crazy to have one but I ended up replacing it. I once gave up my pom tree as I needed the space...I now have two. Since I love these plants so much, I had to find a way to help them thrive in my environment. :)

Orchids, though, I do now buy what grows easily for me. I realized that I enjoy them for the flowers and am not so picky about the type. The exception was the bellina but I have one now that tolerates the cooler temperatures.

I know this is a gross generalization, but orchids, being very highly-evolved plants, are less likely to tolerate conditions outside of their cultural niche than most terrestrial plants.

There are many terrestrial plants that are very picky, too. Sometimes, it depends on how long the plants have been in cultivation or what their individual native range covered... just like orchids. The common houseplants are quite easy to grow which probably accounts for their popularity.

Truth. I still cannot grow a damned maiden hair fern, regardless of how many ways I've attempted to grow and kill one!

It's an interesting process this learning how to grow orchids! I started about 15 years ago while trying to grow other tropicals in a NH greenhouse. Of course my initial collection evolved out of whatever my wife and I saw at shows that we liked. I'll call it the "Oh my" factor. Man, I should have been brought up on cruelty charges!

Interestingly, I think I have learned more about those failed attempts since I moved my growing to the Keys. For the plants I particularly enjoy (cattleya's and other warm growing epiphytes) I ran that greenhouse completely wrong. Too cheap to spend the money to run the heater high enough all winter or to shell out $ to the power company to run grow lights for a few hours most days in the fall, winter and spring to supplement the abysmal natural sunlight.

When I moved that collection to the Keys 4 years ago when I retired, the plants just absolutely exploded! This is what they wanted. A lot of them survived in NH but they sure as heck weren't thriving.

As the cool weather plants from NH died off over time down here I finally started my real education. Grow the plants that the environment you can provide for them will like. Because we are snowbirds, I've also moved to selecting varieties that will bloom primarily between October and May. A lot of the complex Cattleya hybrids are good too, because I am finding I can get 2-3 bloom cycles/year out of them here. I have spent hours combing IOSPE looking at genus and species cultivation information. Cross referencing to another source like OrchidWiz is also beneficial. There are some differences of opinion but what I'm finding is that the source of the individual plant stock can definitely impact your success ratio. I think that may account for some of those disconnects in the literature.

Pests here are very different and honestly, much easier to deal with here I fully believe, because of growing outdoors year round and the constant flow of the tradewinds we enjoy. (although today it is dead calm and hotter then he!!). In the GH, it was a constant battle against mites, whitefly, aphids, mealybugs, you name it even though I was running 2 big floor fans 24/7. Growing indoors is a different beast. Here, I had one outbreak of thrips which I had had no experience with but got good local advice on what was going on and now have a good and successful approach to systemically eliminating them. 2 years running so far. And then of course there are my friends the iguanas. :(( It's a battle but I win more than I lose. I keep a constant eye out both for them and for plants that are starting to spike. As soon as I see a bud (which is what they love to eat) I grab the plant and move it to our large porch which is essentially our living and dining area all winter. It adds some work keeping 2 plant growing areas but I have to say, my chest does puff up just a bit when we have company and they come up onto the porch, stop dead in their tracks and say "Oh my god!". In the dead of winter it really has grown into quite a show.

I also learned that I killed a lot of GH orchids by overwatering. When you're growing cool, err on the side of too dry. Down here during the summer, my plants get drenched constantly by mother nature and they love it because this is what they want when they are in their summer growth spurt. In the winter it's typically much dryer here with significantly lower humidity so I supplement with irrigation roughly every 4 days except for my epiphytes which are under a 2x/day auto mister.
Of course, there are those select families of plants that want a complete dry time so you need to be cognizant of those guys.

I have also done a much better job of understanding nutrition and that is paying dividends as well but in all honesty, I don't have the scientific brain that our friend Ray has about such things which is why I have really enjoyed reading his contributions to this forum. I don't understand it all, but what I do and have tried seems to help so thank you Ray!

quite some different approaches here.
I feel like I waited far too long to eventually start growing orchids, that was my main conclusion.

The advantage was that I could then provide all they needed and had a bit of experience already but nobody really tells you how slow it can be to get some orchids established.
It is such a bonus when you buy a plant that is about to flower and even better when it is in great condition so it just settles in at yours without a hiccup compared to most dendrobiums I have bought that need 2 years to get used to my climate and settle in.

One of the first plants from a nursery instead of the supermarket was a Phalaenopsis Bellina. She did not disappoint and I have 4 of them now. The great thing about the Bellina is it flowers for a month, takes a month to produce another flower, flowers for a months, takes another month to produce the next flower and does this one more time if you are lucky. So it flowers for a long period every year which is great.

I just discovered the powerful smell of an Angraecum this year which is also lovely but in comparison I got one month of flowering and 11 months of non flowering.

Cattleyas are next but they are quite pricey once they are big so instead of getting a few per year for the next 10 years I am going to get them all at once as seedlings and hopefully have a nice collection of those in 5 years. You really need the patience for this hobby.

I tried dendrobium seedlings but the roots on those are the thickness of hair! so not easy to work with, with phalaenopsis and cattleya you get far chunkier roots so hopefully a bit easier to work with.

Excellent thread. What I have found, and a lot of other growers too is ------ the local climate and local conditions (even where the orchids are placed around the home, or where-ever they will be growing) ----- can make a difference in how much work or effort needs to be put in.

In the tropics here, my orchids grow under a balcony, and just so-happens to be pretty good growing conditions for a bunch of tropical kinds of orchids. The only thing I do is just water them, along with the once-a-month weak fertiliser and weak mag-cal application. I pretty much never need to touch the orchids and/or their pots.

I can grow temperate/cold climate cymbidiums here - no problem at all - but I know in advance that it's going to be difficult or impossible to get flower spikes developing from them ...... but that's ok with me, as I'll just be happy to be growing the cyms with no spikes. Maybe there will be the occasional surprise .... not sure. But definitely ok with no spikes. I like the cym leaves.

I don't think I can grow the cold climate or high-elevation dendrobium here ---- eg. various speciosum --- so I don't grow them. One day I may give it a try - just to see what happens. But probably won't expect flowering or spiking.

Other than that ------- I have found that the orchids are like us -- and other animals/plants. We're all growing systems. As long as these systems have the required conditions to function properly and reliably ----- then ok. It will be our job/task/aim to get some idea (checklist) of what requirements should be satisfied (in general) ..... and make sure those requirements are satisfied all the time (not just some of the times).

It is from that point on where people can be in a position to tinker more ..... compensation, experimenting, optimising ------ that's if they want to.

Understanding that there are various ways for growing orchids in the home etc ....... and they can all be reliable. Also understanding some people need to use automatic watering systems - simply due to having so many orchids. So there must be different ways of growing.

And the other thing is to get an idea about what sort of organism/insects/mites etc that are around - that could possibly attack the orchids. And then have a selection of goodies (systematics, non-systematics etc) waiting in the wings to use - if needed.

I'll echo DC about airy mix, at least for epiphytes.

One thing I've noticed is that everything I've unpotted and mounted, is growing faster and putting out more growth/spikes than what is potted. My potted plants are in clay, with either Geolite (similar to hydroton), or New Zealand tree fern.

My belief is that air exchange at the roots is the reason for this, which in pots, requires more drying out. Exposed/aerial roots, can be watered/fed multiple times per day, and respond accordingly.

I don't want to hijack this thread with my thoughts on this, but will be adding more observations to my thread under Growing Under Lights

No hijack, Steve, this is the kind of info I was looking to elicit

What is the humidity like for you? Mounts are the best but they need either the work of maintaining them (water) of an environment that does it for you ( tropics or greenhouse or terrarium)

Also are you still able to get tree fern? A lot of folks are not carrying it or can’t get it.

My humidity goes from 65 to 80% at the 7am watering, and it drops to 60 by 7pm when the light goes off. I can water the mounts up to 3x day lol

When the light goes off, humidity rises back into the 70s as things cool.

This is labeled as New Zealand tree fern, and under the dame distribution as Orchiata I believe. They offer it in slab form for mounts, or shredded for potting.

bloominmachine.jpg - Google Drive

It is softer than regular tree fern, and the pieces appear fine, but it maintains it's structure (air passages) when saturated.

The slabs can hold quite a bit of water if you drench them, and some plants may root into them. I purchased both Sophie's Orchids. There are also some vids of the products on youtube.

Sweet. Thanks.

I just bought a Kill-A-Watt today, to see how much my humidifier pulls (it wasn't displayed on the box or tag), because I know energy consumption is a concern for many of us, and I was curious as to what my monthly running cost is.

With the led bars I swapped in, two 5w fans, and humidifier, my daily cost to run is only $0.20 a day, and a single bar would be perfectly fine as well. I will happily pay that to gain complete control of all parameters so that is on par with a greenhouse.

Since I have a majority of the reflective material covered and routed into a drip pan, I may do the inside of the doors and add a chameleon. Because they cannot leap upward, and possess fused feet (not like a gecko) one could be contained among the plants.

They require extremely high humidity, good air circulation and pure water. Most have strong pH preferences as well.

DC,
Googled tree fern and found this place, sort of in your back yard I think... Broward Orchid Supply

I have gotten slabs at shows from time to time, of course that's not happening... I have found that the core part of Australian Tree fern (which grows readilly where I live) (the part where leaves have dropped and the fuzzy part is gone) is quite a good substrate for mounting. I put in a request with my landscape guy to save me a trunk if he ever had to take a dead one out... about 6 months later I came home to find a 10-ft trunk on my patio, I have been taking pieces of it for several years. So if you can score something like that, nice.

All the things we do for our beloved plants....