C. walkeriana fma.Coerulea 'Manhattan Blue'
 

This is my newest edition to my collection and I need some advice. There is some inconsistency with this plant. C.Walkeriana is supposed to be unifoliate but i see one of the seven pseudobulb is bifoliate. Is this a true walkeriana?

I was expecting the plant to arrive in bark and stones like my other catt but surprisingly it arrive in a soggy sphagnum moss covered with living green moss on the surface. It looks beautiful, but I thought C.Walkeriana needs a good drainage and slightly dryer growth condition?

Has anyone grow this strain before? I need more info and advice about this strain. Thanks.

Your flowers do appear to be C walkeriana.

Although the plant looks very healthy (but much too green and, therefore, possibly soft and prone to injury & subsequent disease), I think you're right to have concerns about the plants being in soggy sphagnum ... especially in a plastic pot. It must have taken a very discilined grower to grow in this combination, since it takes forever to dry out. In the juvenile stages, you could probably get away with growing in spagnum in plastic, because the plant & pot are still relatively small. But once a plant reaches your plant's size, I would suggest transplanting to a coarser better drained medium & pot.

C walkeriana roots need good air & drainage ... then the roots are much more forgiving. It is easier to plant in a very airy, well-drained mix and to water more often (every day or every other day when necessary). The roots need frequent moisture but do not appreciate staying soggy wet. The roots also can tolerate drought, but do not thrive in it. So you should water often. The advice about watering once every 8-10 days might hold true for a sphagnum in plastic combination, but I am watering daily these warm days & every 2-3 days when in the 70's. That's in a very well-drained coarse medium.

As for your plant having 2 leaves on one pseudobulb ... As a rule, C walkeriana is unifoliate. However, under certain conditions, I have found that some pbulbs can be bifoliate. First, is is very common for juvenile growths to be bifoliate. As the plant matures, the newer growths are generally unifoliate. Even on a mature plant, sometimes a growth may be bifoliate. But there is usually a reason for this. If a plant receives an excessive or unbalanced dosage of fertilizer, or if there is some major disruption during new shoot development, 2 leaves may sometimes result. However, subsequent growths will revert to a single leaf. In the case of your plant, the bifoliate growth may be one of the juvenile growths.

In addition, the coeruleas are different from the norm in their blooming habit. Normally, C walkeriana produces a specialized flowering growth that starts off looking like a new cane, but eventually develops into a leafless flower spike. This usually emerges from the base of the newest pbulb. However, it is not unusual for coeruleas to bloom either from there or, more often, from a flower spike that emerges from where the leaf comes out of the apex of the pbulb. I can't see in your photo, but your coerulea flower may be blooming out of the apex.

Thanks Catwalker, I was reading up all your last post and was hoping you can reply to my thread.

Growing medium:
After reading your comment I have decided to transfer my plant to S/H. The reason being that I am afraid of the coming monsoon season in Shanghai which can bring humudity close to 100% and from last year's experience my phal in moss medium is sitting on soaking wet moss for over one month without watering. With S/H, I do not have to worry about over watering. I did tought about using bark, but it is a risk for me since I have never used bark before and it will rot quickly in Shanghai's weather (not to mention bugs that just crawled out of the plant when i repoted it). I am trying to minimize risk as this is a very expensive plant in China. I have good success rate witht he set up shown for my oncidium twinkle which grew like crazy in that set up. The water at the bottom contained a very weak fertilizing solution. I was surprised to see very good root system with active growth with very little root rot when I repoted. Do you have any comment on my set up?

Lighting:
You mentioned that the plant is alittle too green and I agree. I am inclined to relocate it to location with longer sun exposure with some direct afternoon light, but I decided to try artificial lighting to suppliment window/balcony light first. Will it be ok if I suppliment it with normal 14watt, warm glow compact fluorescence light? or is the cool day light type better? I cannot get easy access to plant growth light so I have to make do with normal light bulb.

Fertilizing:
You mentioned that abnormal fertilizing can cause bifoliate growth. I checked with the grower and he said he fertilize on the leaves once every week with 20-20-20. This is why there is annoying blue substance on the leave that i cannot get rid of. Is this recomended to grow this plant? What is the best fertilizing regime for c.walkeriana?

Flower:
The flower picture I showed is not this plant's flower. It is the picture given by the grower. The grower said that this plant have not flowered yet. Maybe its due to poor lighting.

Reading and resource:
Do you have any reading materials or website that you can recomend me regarding c.walkeriana? thanks

My c.walkeriana is doing well in the above s/h setup. It has four new root growths and shows no sign of softening. However, I noticed that the older bulbs are more shrivelled. Only the two relatively new pseudo bulb that have not fully mature are not shrivelled. My growing condition should be ideal for this plant (temp 25-20 degree celcius, humidity 50-60%, light 2000-4000 foot candle). I checked and cannot find any root rot or other diseases/pest. Is this normal for catts in s/h?

Nice looking coerulea! Congrats!

Its been two month since i first posted pictures of my C. Walkeriana. At that time, I wasn't sure if it can survive S/H. Now the answer is clear, It is thriving in S/H with heavy fertilizing regiment. Two new pseudobulb growing and many root growth.

However, I still have question for the cattleya experts in this forum.

1) Root growth: I noticed that over half of the new roots growth is healthy, but it is "hovering" above the medium and grow as aerial roots. I have never seen so many aerial root on Cattleya. My other cattleya hybrid is Blc "triumphal coronation" grown in S/H and did not grow aerial roots. All its new roots are growing deep into the medium. My question - is this root growth normal for C. walkeriana?

2) Fertilizing regiment: SInce that my priority have shifted from making it survive to making it thrive and flower, I want to ask the expert out there about fertilizing regiment for this plant. What kind of fertilizer should I give? I am currently feeding it with balanced fertilizer half the recomended dose, but always present in the water reservoir of the S/H. I have people telling me that cattleya can thrive on just high phosphate, low nitrogen fertilizer. Is this true?

Thanks

I wonder if it likes the humidity from sitting on top of humid clay pellets but also like having the root dry. Maybe it is like in the tropics. High humidity, clouds, but the roots like to dry after a rainstorm.

That is my hyphothesis too, but i can't prove it without expert's advice. The thing is that some of the new roots actually grow downward towards the water reservoir. The reason i use s/h is also because the weather in shanghai is too hot. It gets to above 35C or above 95F right now. S/H seems to have a cooling effect on the root system.

I am trying out other method to increase airflow for my S/H.

I wonder if you used a smaller pot... You couls maybe get the same effect with a clay pot filled with LECA and sitting in a saucer with water. maybe the roots would be growing outside around the pot. could be nice looking

I've had great success with getting new roots to "dig down" into the media instead of being aerial- by putting a sphagnum moss toplayer on. Not to much, and not packed, but enough to make it a moister environment without causing rot.

So hot here that i need to put some moss on top or roots will dry

I'm in a similar situation- except low humidity, but a little heat as well.

If you guys notice my plant pic, there is live moss growing on top of it, and true enough the roots that is growing on the moss covered area dig down into the medium. However, the environment provided by S/H should be wet enough since there is constant moisture and never really dry up. this is still a mystery.

autumnchild.
Your plant roots look really nice in sh conditions. Looks like it was a good decision to get it out of the sphagnum.

Because they grow on tree branches & in the open on moist rocks, C walkeriana roots have very efficient moisture & nutrient absorbing roots. The roots are spongy, absorb water easily & retain moisture. When exposed, the roots are nice & fat & can elongate quickly in search of moisture. This also means that if the roots are buried in a constantly wet medium they may quickly rot. Your roots are fat, white, with nice green tips. They seem to grow out into space, but the roots also squirm into cracks & crevices to provide support & secure the plant. All portions of the healthy roots absorb moisture & nutrients, not just the tips.

thanks for the advice, its good to hear that i am doing somethings right. however, if the roots gets anylonger it will be unsightly and dificult to handle without accidentally damaging them. should I burry the roots inside the medium or should i trim it with a sterile tools?

I would like to share some observation lately regarding this plant. It has been really hot in shanghai in this past months and the temperature has constantly stayed around 35-40C (over 100F) for a month. It received direct sunlight for total 6 hours, 3 hours in the morning and 3 hours just before sunset. Temperature under direct sunlight can easily go above 40C. Furthermore, my balcony is covered with white tile and it reflects light and heat.

A couple of weeks ago I posted and ask for advice regarding temperature effect on my walkerianas. Despite the heat, the plant is still growing really well. The two new pseudobulbs is maturing and a third newer ones pseudobuld is forming at the base. There are some sign of burn at the outer layer of the pseudobulbs, but it did not effect its growth. I only got a chance to mist it every morning. I guess this plant is alot tougher than I tought. It also might be the s/h growing method that helps to cool the plant a little. My dendrobiums and oncidiums are not as lucky. Most of their leaves shows heavy damage from the heat and light. So i moved them to shadier areas to recover.

I'm curious about what you decided to do with the roots?

I just let the root grow and grow and grow. Best to let nature do its thing...

Some forum members have asked me to post most recent pics of this plant. This plant currently have 16 psb, 8 of which developed after I bought it 3 months ago. Basically it doubled in size in 3 months. Three of the developing psb seems to be slightly smaller than normal developing psb.

From (left to right) the first picture you can see 5 developing psb, the middle psb is actually two psb growing very close to each other, the 6th psb is hidden from view behind the matured left most psb. The second pictures shows this hidden 6th psb. The third pics shows the middle two developing psbs that grow simultaneously from one matured psb. These psbs seems to be slightly smaller than normal developing psb. The fourth pic you can see the 5 growing psbs more clearly. The left most and right most matured psb is the first two psb grown under my care in 3 months. The last picture is the original form when i bought it 3 months ago. As you can see it has developed significantly even under one month of intense heat that is above 40C or 100F.

You can read earlier post in this thread to see a more detailed growing log of this plant.

I need advise regarding weather this is normal or not and what is the probable cause. I would really like to know what i did right so that i can repeat it with other plant. I am also concerned about the plant getting too exhausted from the fast growth it is experiencing. Will it be able to flower this year? Should I cut some of the developing psb to reduce its load?

I don't grow any of my plants semi-hydroponically, so hopefully someone else who's familiar with that type of set-up will provide some feedback to you. But I would suggest that if the plant is strong enough to produce lots of new leads, try to encourage all of them to reach their maximum size by providing ample amounts of water, light and fertilizer. I wouldn't terminate any of the new leads either. I chopped my large C. walkeriana coerulea into four pieces last spring, and each created several new growing points as a result. Perhaps it's in the nature of the coeruleas (and C. walkeriana in general) to display vigorous growth like this. Maybe you should see how this particular plant does over the next year before you try to experiment with the others in your collection (just a friendly suggestion).

Autumn Child,
I gotta say, you should be giving us advice, not the other way around! Just log what your water/light/temperature/fertilizing regimen is and reproduce it next year. Then write an article here in on OB so we can all do the same! It sounds to me like you more than one plant in your pot, which is fairly common with seedlings. It would also account for the unusually number of new growths.

I am very sure its not multiple plants. When I repot it after it arrived, I saw that the plant are all connected. I don't even know the concentration of the fertilizer. I just give half the recomended dosage. I use some locally made cheap fertilizer that has no mineral concentration information. Water and fertilizer is always present since it is an S/H set up. Light is somewhere between 1500-3500 candle foot. Temperature ....definitely way too hot and not ideal for growth. The plant have suffered over 40C or 100F temperature for a month already, but it still grows vigorously. another worrying fact is that the plant is basically a gnat and some small insect hive. They don't seem to damage the plant and I am not sure weather i need to spray insecticide which can potentially damage the plant.

Today I just noticed this plant produce another new psb from an old, shrivelled and small psb. This is definitely not normal. This plant currently have 7psbs maturing at the same time. I contacted the grower to see if the plant from the same batch is growing at this frantic rate. He told me that their plant is growing only half the amount of psb as my plant. He also said that my plant might be receiving too little light and too much fertilizer. However, according to my own measurement, the plant is receiving about 1500-3500 foot candle with at least 4-5 hours of direct sunlight on clear days. I only add half the recomended dose of local balance fertilizer once a week to the reservoir. last month i started adding half dosage of high phosphate fertilizer once a week to promote flowering. So the plant is getting fertilized twice a week. I figure that the reservoir contain 150ppm nitrogen and 250ppm phosphate max.

Anyone have similar experience with their walkeriana?

Autumn Child.
I was following this thread for a while, & you just stopped. In my opinion, the multiple new shoots in your photos & descriptions are not normal growth. The shoots do look ok, but the emergence of so many shoots at the same time is not a normal occurrence.

C walkeriana coeruleas are capable of putting out more growths in a season than other varieties, but not normally 2 or 3 at once from the same older growth. In addition, the growths they are emerging from are not all very mature either. When you first mentioned several growths, I just felt that you were feeding very heavily & with the warm conditions, your plants were experiencing unusually vigorous growth. When you mentioned the numerous additional growths, some bells went off. Your plant is just producing growth after growth.

I thought that there might be two possible reasons for the unusual growth. There's an old saying that goes: "Think horse before you think zebra." That is to say, consider the more obvious before you consider the exotic or far fetched.

You mentioned that you are using a "cheap" fertilizer with indeterminate contents. You are also growing in s/h with this fertilizer solution. With your very hot temps, your plants may really be transpiring rapidly & sucking up & storing fertilizer in disproportionate amounts. There may be something in the fertilizer which is causing this unusual amount of constant new growth. Cheap fertilizers may also be very high in nitrogen & your plant is sucking that up first.

So your plant may have been experiencing a very long and intense summer growing season. If that is the case, and if you continue the heavy feed (even as your temps cool down a bit) you will continue to have new growth ... although to a lesser extent.

However, all of those growths may not have the chance to really mature & fatten up properly, since there are so many new bulbs to feed. Consequently, your plant may bloom, but with relatively small or weak flowers.

In any case, At this time of year, I would suggest cutting back your feed & also let your plants experience a good day/night temp differential of 20 F (if you can). This will fatten up your bulbs & make for better blooms later. Also, a shortened day length of 12-14 hours down to 8-10 hours should also help trigger blooms.

There is also a "zebra" (the exotic explanation), which may not be the case here. When walkerianas are produced in flask, when not handled properly, the very young growths (seed or mericlone material) can experience rapid & random uncontrolled proliferation or multiplication. For cloning, some labs actually use chemicals to induce this rapid proliferation. Whatever starts it, sometimes this proliferation becomes uncontrolled & even when plants grow and mature, instead of clean discrete growth (young bulbs, leaves, mature bulbs, flower spikes, flowers) the plants may exhibit only continuous production of new growths, which may never bloom or may bloom deformed flowers.

I just mentioned the "zebra", but I don't think this is the case here. Although the growths are excessive in number, they each seem to look ok. If cutting off the fertilizer, combined with more temperate weather, enables the plant to bloom, then I think we're really back to the issue that the excessive uptake of fertilizer by the plant because of the s/h & high temps may have been what was causing the unusual & excessive new growths.

Post some recent photos. Hopefully by now there are fewer new growths & they are fattening up as your weather has cooled somewhat.

I too am curious as to what is now happening with your plant!

Thanks for the explaination catwalker! I don't think its the "zebra" either. The more likely cause is the fertilizer overdose problem. The plant is stabilizing at the moment. No new growth, just finishing up and maturing all the excess growth. The new growth is fattening up, but like you said it is not as big as the the psb that have chance to grow more exclusively.

The plant moved indoors now. The weather outside is about 10C. The vendor said that it can stand up to 3C, but I am not willing to risk. The downside is that I don't have a bright south facing window and shanghai winter is mostly cloudy. So on average I would guess it is only getting a light level that is optimal for phal growth and not for catt growth. I don't think it will flower this year, just hoping it won't die. I guess i will have to wait for a better artificial lighting system next year.

I have also cut back on fertilizer and water. I let it dry somewhat before adding more water with weak fertilizer. The colder condition should prevent it to dry excessively.

Autumn Child.
Confucius say: "One picture is worth ten thousand words."

Confucius say: "One picture is worth ten thousand words."

Can't argue with that. Will try to post some pics this weekend.

Here is my pic update of the plant. It seems healthy, but the newly grown psb is not as large as it should. Another problem with the plant is that the roots tend to abort when the tip touches the medium. But in general the roots are just not growing as well as it should. The tip tends to get brown easily and it abort.

The first four image is the most recent photo, the second last photo is from a month ago and the last photo is from 4 months ago.

I'm not sure if you've told us- if you're using tap or pure water? Perhaps your dissolved solids are really high. That and excessive fertilizer can burn root tips.

Sometimes I use RO water sometimes I use tap water. I use RO when I am fertilizing. Excessive mineral build up is also my guess, altough some roots are persistant enough to grow under. There are some roots growing into the water reservoir and they seem healthy. Its the newly growing roots that got burned easily.

Managed to dig up this old threat. thought i want to update on the plant progress. The picture shown if from last april's (2012) bloom. I kept growing it in S/H and it grew many pseudobulbs. However all is not great. Despite being a large mature plant (over 20 pseudobulbs), it is flowering for the first time last year and only one flower bloomed. The problem with this plant is the roots system. It does not respond to well with S/H and maybe the tap water i am providing.

I had another c. walkeriana "tokutsu" and it is growing in a clay pot with moss. It is fed with mostly RO water and it grew much slower but much bigger pseudobulbs and healthier root system. Having said that I do have c. nobilior grown in similar S/H condition and fed with tap water. It grow like weed and has thick fat roots that grows all over the place. It flowered this year with two blooms. My other c.nobilior "briliant" however, did not grow so well in S/H, but manage to produce many small pseudobulbs.

This year i cut 4 pseudobulbs from the main plant and hang it with fern and moss. I sprayed it tap water once every two days. It responded very well and grew many roots. It seems that the hard tap water did not slow it growth, but somehow s/h does. The mother plant in s/h attepted to flower, but also just one bud forming right now. It will flower in a a week.

In conclusion my c.walkeriana coerulea and some c. nobilior respond poorly to s/h. I am still not giving up with s/h yet. I am still observing why some c.nobilior seem to do well while others don't. I will also split my c. walkeriana tokutsu in the future and try to grow it s/h. I will of course try to adjust my s/h conditions to see if it respond well.

Thanks for the update! Definitely keep this thread updated in the future too. I'm always curious about how people grow their Catts.

I have a few walkerianas, and decided to put kiekie grow on them last summer. Got many many new growths, but no flowers. I'm hoping they're over this hormone overload and get back to normal growth. Next time I'll only use kiekie growth on back bulbs. It also made tons of basal kiekies on my phal species, but no flowers. Too much of a good thing.

How did you apply this to your walkeriana? Was it on the eye? I've never used this stuff before, but have a walkeriana that could use some extra growth.

If you read the beginning of this post, my plant also experience a growth acceleration period while it produces no flower at all despite its maturity. The resulting growth from the growth acceleration is also smaller than the normal growth. I believe the combination of constant water, high nitrogen fertilizer and heat cause it to grow too fast and produce no flower. I stoped fertilizing and reduce watering, it grows at normal pace and proceed to flower the following year.

I put the growth hormone on the dormant eyes. Lots of growth, but don't expect flowers during that cycle.