Vanda beginner question
 

Sorry if I am being repeative. My Vandas (3) Two seedings almost a yr old, still green with 3 or 4 leaves each, but have grown very little since they arrived. The New Vanda, with ok roots. and 6 to10 leaves, looks ok also, but the problem I am having is getting my head around ideal care in dry arid NM.

Here is what I am doing. all three going into pH adjusted well water twice daily, 20 20 20 once a week, 1/4 tsp per gallon. after the root soaks for an hr or so, I place them in good light, in an empty vase, roots hanging. Is winter sunlight OK? or should I be careful and use a grow light instead.

Heat requirement...should I use a heat mat if my ambient temp on kitchen counter is about 65 at night and perhaps 70 in the daylight?

re spraying... how necessary is it for the leaves? daily? or more often.
Do Vandas have a crown? like other orchids?

After spraying with a fine mist, how important is it to dry the leaves after. do they get crown root?

How do I evaluate the health of the older vanda? is that size a wait of 2 to 3 years for a stem and blooms?

:blushing::blushing::blushing::blushing: they are not phals, oncs or zygopediums !!!!!!!!!

---------- Post added at 10:19 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:31 AM ----------

How important is it for me to add a fan near my vandas? would an overhead fan be enought or one closer to the plants?

Skip the leaf spraying. It doesn't do anything useful. I wouldn't use a fan in a low humidity environment.

Your temperatures are OK but they probably won't grow much like that. Winter sun in NM is probably fine.

The seedlings aren't growing through the year because you aren't fertilizing enough. Vandas are heavy nitrogen feeders. Reverse the days... use your relatively dilute fertilizer solution (approximately 75 ppm nitrogen) at almost every watering, and pure water once a week. There should be a lighter green band of new growth at the bases of the emerging leaves. If you can't see this you aren't fertilizing enough.

The bigger one might flower in 2021. It depends on how large are the ancestors, and your care.

Thanks ES I knew I could count on you for great instructions on Vandas in arid areas.

Hi early,
we haven't seen a picture of your plants yet. They sound like seedlings so be careful on the feeding. Vanda seedlings are far more sensitive than fully grown vanda's so they should be treated like phalaenopsis while small. Heavy feeding does not equal more growth, usually it achieves the opposite. So be very cautious with advice online (including mine) that might or might not apply to your plants. Mst answers can be found in books and these days you don't even have to buy them. Just look for the top 10 books on google about orchids, don't dismiss the japanese ones if you can get google translate on them, they are very good. So once you have your titles you go to amazon and type in the title - they will provide you at least 50% to view for free as a sample without having to buy the book.
Then if you look for a downloadable pdf version of "orchids for dummies" - it is the best guide I have read so far and can be found on dozens of places to download the full version for free. After reading all the top 10 books I mentioned you will hardly have any questions left.

should I be careful and use a grow light instead?
I use a grow light in winter but I live in Europe - a south facing window should be sufficient where you live but if you don't have south facing then consider it.

Heat requirement...should I use a heat mat if my ambient temp on kitchen counter is about 65 at night and perhaps 70 in the daylight?
This is personal preference. A vanda appreciates a difference between day and night and will grow a bit better with heat during the day only but it will do ok without heat. Adding heat adds more problems. Don't think, ok heat mat done. No, you would need a thermostat to make sure the heatmat doesn't overheat, ideally a hygrometer to measure humidity as heat mats dry orchids in no time. This is where most growers I know use a terrarium. Terrariums prevent humidity dropping - they can be used to create any climate in any climate. Like a spaceship in space they are a separate growing environment to your dry climate. A greenhouse is ideal for vanda's. A terrarium is essentially just a mini indoor greenhouse - just a bit trickier as smaller spaces can heat up faster, dry out faster or get too humid faster so a humidity and temperature sensor are very useful.

re spraying... how necessary is it for the leaves? daily? or more often.
Do Vandas have a crown? like other orchids?
After spraying with a fine mist, how important is it to dry the leaves after. do they get crown root?
yes they have a crown, like a phalaenopsis and yes they can get crown rot. Some believe it happens from water pooling between leaves and not drying fast enough, others believe it happens when an orchid is weak and stressed. Spraying leaves is a waste of time, orchids should drink from their roots if they have them.


How do I evaluate the health of the older vanda? is that size a wait of 2 to 3 years for a stem and blooms?
I have no idea how small your vandas are.

they are not phals, oncs or zygopediums !!!!!!!!!
I think that would be zygopetalums


How important is it for me to add a fan near my vandas? would an overhead fan be enought or one closer to the plants?
Depends who you ask. Some people use them. Mine are currently all with fans but that is only because I do heat and provide additional light for mine and I use fans to increase humidity with humidty trays (fan + humidity tray = big humidity increase ; fan without humidity tray = big humidity loss).
It also depends on your growing method and your climate. If you feel like after monitoring humidity and temperature that it gets too hot or too humid, or even too dry as I mentioned a fan can be beneficial. Also if your pots don't dry out fast enough instead of repotting the lot you could try using a fan to dry them faster between watering which is a popular thing to do. So use a fan when you feel you need one. If you do use one use it to circulate air in the room and avoid directly blowing onto the orchids

In greenhouses they are needed to replace stale air. For a few plants in a house there is generally enough drafts to provide all the air exchange they need,

__________________

Martin Motes in his book says Vandas need huge amounts of fertilizer. He says seedlings need even more. I think 75 ppm nitrogen at every watering won't hurt them.

ES, since you grow lots of Vandas in AZ compared to my arid NM, I am going to follow your advice re fertilizer.
In a previous post you mentioned the tiny seedlings need lot of N, and suggested six days on followed by one day of pure water, Does that also go for the one that is more mature with abt 7 or 8 leaves and good roots???

ES, since you grow lots of Vandas in AZ compared to my arid NM, I am going to follow your advice re fertilizer.
In a previous post you mentioned the tiny seedlings need lot of N, and suggested six days on followed by one day of pure water, Does that also go for the one that is more mature with abt 7 or 8 leaves and good roots???

Fertilizer is a judgment call. I aim for the 1 centimeter light green band of new growth. Motes writes that he waters his adult Vandas with plain water every morning, and also in the afternoon if the weather is hot and dry. He writes he fertilizes all the Vandas every fifth watering. He uses a large amount of fertilizer. With you using a lower dose, using it at almost every watering would make more sense.

The take-home message I got from his book is that Vandas prefer far more fertilizer than almost all other orchids. I would point out they grow better in warm temperatures, so they are not going to grow as much for you between 65-70 F in winter as they would between 65-100 F in summer.

Thanks so much. I am going to keep all this information in my Vanda file.

I think your biggest hurdles are humidity and airflow. Plants with mounts/exposed roots do substantially better when those two paramaters are met.

Light and temperature are probably number 3 and 4 for your situation.

tx Steve

I have dry indoor conditions and followed this advice, somewhat: I have my vandas in extremely well draining and slightly aerated translucent plastic pots with wine corks as media. Instead of sphagnum moss, I've topped my pots with smaller pieces of cork so there aren't as many gaping holes.

The cork in the pot is very loose around the roots and the media itself doesn't retain much moisture, but the setup keeps the air around the roots humid. I drench them when they've dried out, which is usually daily, and fertilize one or two times a week. (Probably could stand to increase feeding.)

I've had a number of buds blast and am working on figuring out the cause, but so far I don't see signs of dehydration, there's new root growth, and the existing roots seem to be holding up well.

EDIT: I should add that I've only had this setup for a few months so take this advice with a grain of salt! So far this is what has worked best for me.

Motes have some good advice, I think I started adding more magnesium because of an article by them but like with every advice you have to make it work for you.

Since we still don't know the size of discussed Vanda I will just post this to illustrate I believe smaller plants need less energy than 2 meter tall Vanda's..

I have dug out one of my Vanda's that has been on 10ppm N for the past year, next year it will go up to 20 ppm N. I am still new to Vanda's so I'm not claiming to have any good answers but I know what I have done wrong in the past. If you look closely on the picture you will see the older roots are burnt... That was done when I was using 50ppm N.