flowering season sticky possibility?
 

hey all, and mods,

i was wondering if it might be possible to have a generalized timetable of flowering times/season as a sticky for some of the main groups? im asking because often i see posts about species we have where people post flowering pics and it appears they are in the same hemisphere and zone as us, and our plants are just sitting there putting on leaves. part of the problem is we bought many new plants as young specimens not at flowering age, but some should be flowering yet aren’t. then i start going down the rabbit hole and end up with more info than i need.

understanding that there are some major exceptions like summer blooming phals and such, but is such a simple guide a possibility? thanks for any thoughts or comments

For orchid species, that information is already given at the Internet Orchid Species Photo Encyclopedia (IOSPE.)

For hybrids flowering season is variable. A good example is in Cattleyas - most natural species have a very strong seasonal growth and flowering periodicity, with one growth period and one flowering period per year. But there are individual species that flower at all times of the year. Different Cattleya alliance hybrids may have strong seasonal flowering times, inherited from ancestors, or may flower as soon as they complete growth.

hey es, yes, the iospe is usually the first link i click when im researching specific plants. and i guess by now i should just realize that there is a ton of conflicting info. case in point, and part of the reason for this post, was looking against specifics for laelia purpurata, or Cattleya p if u prefer.

on the ios site is says late spring thru fall, but then a couple other sites i found, apparently northern hemi English sites say a Christmas bloomer. all agree they need a dry winter rest.

so, the ios site is your all trusted main source for species info?

Yes, IOSPE. I live at about 33.5 degrees North, so those seasons are close to mine. I've never heard of C/L purpurata being a Christmas bloomer. C. percivaliana is considered a Christmas bloomer in the Northern Hemisphere. I wouldn't (and don't) give either a completely dry winter rest.

hey man, thanks again. i appreciate you entertaining these questions. there is so much to know, and i have been really focusing on maximizing our blooms as of late. so now it’s trying to parse out if we are doing stuff wrong or if we just aren’t in the right season for some of them or what’s going on. the purpurata we have is smallish, but there are several mature pbulbs and many have had what look to be something bout to pop out of the growing tips since we have gotten it, but this summer it did nothing except grow another new bulb or 2. after really drilling down over the last couple days, im starting to lean towards too cool of temps in our place. it was a mild summer here, and we always have a cool draft blowing through. this thought was reinforced by the fact that our one epidendrum, which always looked anemic, has actually started to put on a nice spike....about the only thing we have showing any signs of summer flowering. and it’s a cool grower (capricornum). the only summer blooming phal that flowered, while it looks nice and put on 5 flowers, last year when we bought it it had about 30 flowers on 3 spikes. so a major reduction in our care. meanwhile, the leaves that thing grew (3 this summer) are way bigger than any previous leaves. im really thinking our culture is shifted in the wrong direction somehow away from promoting flowers and want to get that corrected. sorry, my science brain is working hard on this one, but thanks for your thoughts!

tmoney, a lot of times with phals you might find that they flower once but then need to grow more.

I was amazed to see someone recently managed to get a phal to flower for the first time just 2 years after sowing the seed!

Ok that is great but kind of less great for the buyer. You are buying a plant that is only 1 year old, yes it is being sold as flowering size and has managed to make a little tester flowering for you but ultimately they are still too small and young. These modern hybrids they just like to impress by producing a flower early to show what they can do and so they can be sold as flowering size but then a lot of times they do need to grow a bit more first.

So many of my phals have fowered the first year getting them, then second year most of the time they don't do much and third year they thrive.

With phals they should be producing leaves. If a phal stops growing new leaves then it also will not flower. Growing bigger leaves is a good sign.

The advice is always to have enough light as that is the main reason orchids don't flower but I would have to say with LED lights being so cheap and using so little electricity the only thing affecting flowering should be pests and temperatures.

New additions tend to have a lot of pests... As I have doscovered thrips lay their eggs in the plant so you could get your new plant, wash it, treat it and still babies will hatch out of the stem a couple weeks later..

Also thrips can hide their damage so you might not even notice you have a problem except less vigorous growth (because energy is being sapped)

It could be temps, temps do help. But I think this happens to every new grower. We tend to think it is our care that affects growth for the next few months.

I had a plant dislpay a stressful event a whole year after experiencing the stressful event. So it grew a leaf just fine and then it grw a real stunted leaf and carries on like normal afterwards.

Even flowering to some extent is determined up to a year before it flowers. Everything in that year needs to be good and if something is off then it might not even affect things that year but probably will the year after.

I find they store the energy to flower well in advance and any success in the very first year should be attributed to the nursery still. Then in the second year it will be down to our care but also the very stressful event of moving to a completely new environment.

hi, sf, what you replied does make sense. honestly im sure i myself just need to be more patient! and try to enjoy more the growth they are doing as well as their overall unique characteristics. probly a bit of cockiness rearing it’s ugly head as well, as a couple we bought i really thought would do something this summer flower wise since most of them seemed to bounce back fairly soon after purchasing. most of the phals we were prepared to wait to see some flowers, so, we shall see how this first winter goes. i need to remember that we are still new to orchids!

I have a few C/L purpurata seedlings. The warmer it is, the faster they grow. And they need lots of water when growing rapidly.

im sensing a trend towards a tad warmer higher temp limit. i would guess our flat is around 70-75 most days, but with the nice cross breeze we achieve with the windows and doors it probly feels more like 65. for sure a couple time we went outside this summer just to get warm! hahahah, true story. and no ac!! hopefully we haven’t set the warm growers back too far. most of our phals, and a couple other warmer growers are right in the main breezeway, as i postulated the increased air movement would be good for them. i guess time will tell, but it’s been a good weekend of continued research and reflection.

I'm not saying it requires heat to survive and flower. I just don't have experience with your temperatures. 70-75 F / 21-24C would cooler than mine ever see, day or night, between mid February and early December.

I heard a talk on Laelia purpurata a few years ago at our society. I though I had posted notes here but can't find them. The speaker said they do fine with daytime temperatures up to the 110 F / 44C range if well watered, and humidity is good. She said hers frequently go over that in summer in the greenhouse. She suggested they should survive outdoor summers here in Phoenix in dappled shade, where we get close to 122 F / 50C several times most years, but I'm not going to try that with a small seedling.

dang, that’s hot...

thanks for the reply! so many variables, and sliding ranges. im finally thinking some sort of notebook is in order, thanks for that perhaps unintended suggestion.

For what it's worth... Along with the small and unbloomed plants that I have bought on faith and hope, I have my share of things that I have bought in bloom at shows at different times of the year. I am very fortunate to live in a place with lots of shows and lots of nurseries, this isn't possible in most places. But with this strategy, over time I have amassed a collection where I have something (usually quite a few "somethings") in bloom at all times of the year. Of course, I'm also running out of space... a high- class problem.:biggrin:

In general, just be patient... and love each bloom as it occurs. The bigger and more diverse your collection, the better the odds of having something blooming at any given time. Yes, most species have a specific bloom time. Primary hybrids between spring and fall bloomers may favor one parent or the other, bloom twice during the year, or split the difference. Or whatever. More complex hybrids? It's a guess unless something is very dominant. And then there are the lovely species that bloom multiple times a year, there are some. So just keep buying more orchids :rofl: and you're covered.

estación seca, when I click on that link in firefox I get a secure connection warning. Using this link - Internet Orchid Species Photo Encyclopedia instead bypasses the problem by using an unsecured connection (http vs https).

-Keith

The issue seems to be I made the link h t t p s : / / and IOSPE does not support h t t p s. So some browsers report an error. When I type URLS I automatically insert the h t t p s. Next time I'll try to remember to copy and paste URLs on Orchid Board.

That's a "feature" that I have run into in Chrome (less often in Firefox or Edge actually) If you just put the domain name (such as orchidspecies.com) the browser wants to treat it as a site with an SSL certificate, and just sticks an "https:" in front of it by default. And if the site doesn't actually have a certificate (or if it is expired) the browser (or your Antivirus program) complains bitterly. If you explicitly enter the site as "http://whatever.com", you force it to behave. (Orchid Board itself had that problem for a long time, don't know if it is still there but I put the http:// into my bookmark and haven't had a problem since)

No problem, I was just looking to help, not criticize. I've made the same mistake myself more than once - and at other times I just misspell something in the link. :)

Edit - I see now that Roberta gave the long explanation filling in the technical details. :)


-Keith

I don't see temperatures quite that high but, I my C. dowiana and C. walkeriana seedlings have been growing very rapidly with daytime highs of 95F to (35C) at 50% sun in my greenhouse day in and day out in the S. central Mississippi summer heat. C. walkeriana, in particular, is known to tolerate high daytime temperatures in strong light. C . dowiana, not so much, but the seedlings sure seem to like it.

-Keith

:hijacked:How'd you fare through the storm, neighbor?

oh yeah, my folks mentioned a hurricane hitting down south of new orleans. i hope you are good or not in the path.