My first ever Bag Babies
 

I tried to fix the title. Let's hope it shows up. Stupid thumb hit the wrong part of my screen while I was typing and it was sent.
If not.

My first ever Bag Babies!

For the first time ever.... I bought some bagged orchids.
Did I mention this is the first time I've ever seen them in my area? Ever....
At homedepot!.

I've always wanted to try growing young orchids. It seems rewarding.
Anyhow.
Initially I thought that the picture on the tag was the orchid you got. But a quick look and I realised they were vague descriptions, and they had tags inside that differed from bag to bag.
I really didn't have a lot to choose from but I decided to chance on two of them.
The tags were buried in the pot and hard to read.

I was hoping for some information on the hybrid... fragrance, size, peculiar culture needs, growth habit, light needs, longevity.
If you know that info that is...
But what I really need is.... how the heck do I care for young orchids? Seriously. This is a first for me lol.

And how long from blooming are these guys? They had two sizes available.
I got one of each.
Ok..

First up. C walkeriana semi-alba 'Carmela'...
WLC? Is that last bit part of the name, or something the growers put there?

Did I get the caps right?

This was the large one, in a 4" pot. Honestly all I saw was "alkerian" because the tag was so buried. I brought it home hoping it was walkeriana. An orchid I always love the look of here on the boards.

I was told not to open to bags by several employees. So I couldn't really check the roots. But the roots I could see were healthy, and it had two new growths.
Still haven't looked. Too excited not to share. Is this one picky on when to repot?


Next.

Lc. Schilleriana 'Paradise Blue'
Caps right?

This one is in a 2" pot. Very small. I'm worried I'll kill it.
I literally couldn't see the roots on this one. But I did spot a new growth at the store.


And finally both of them together.

Whew... that was long... sorry

Hmm... tapatalk didn't post the pictures...

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Nice finds!

(I fixed the thread title for you) :)

Those are much bigger and healthier "bag babies" than I've ever seen in my area. At the local spot here that carry them, they're usually in 2" pots, single growth (or maybe a few small ones). And most of the time they look like crap shortly after arriving.

Yours look nice, big and healthy. Probably even blooming sized.

I can't help much with the cattleya alliance plants & questions. I am also drawing a blank on what WLC stands for, but it doesn't look like it's part of the clonal name. Maybe it's for white with colored lip -- since the other plant clearly has a description about color. Perhaps there simply wasn't enough room on the walkeriana tag for anything but a coded color description?

I think you have a couple very nice plants there! I think you will have fun watching them grow, it will take a while but well worth the wait....Jean

Wow, they look large and healthy. Not sure how to blooming. Enjoy!

in my Experience, walkerianas prefer baskets or mounted.

nice find on the walkeriana, how much did you pay for that gardentheater?

here it is ended

Cattleya Walkeriana Semi Alba "Carmela" Am AOS Over Growing A 4 inch Pot | eBay

Yeah the Walkeriana looks like a nice find...that's bigger than most bag babies I generally see.

Now that's good luck! I live in Miami and the box stores here stink. I just lost a semi-alba C. walkeriana, and awarded clone that came as just a slip of a thing, and here you get this? Life isn't fair sometimes. :) Good luck, the plant looks healthy.

great finds, check them for scale. Got some (not such great varieties with scale recently and a friend in a different state did too)

I like them. Thank God for smartphones though. Now I can Google the tag at the store before I buy!
Thank you for fixing it lol. Sometimes my touchscreen likes to mess with me.






Are they? Cool! I'm happy my first are large and healthy.
I really don't think the little one is blooming size, but the large one might be approaching that age. At least I hope.

The little one is in a 2" pot. Im happy it had lots of healthy growths.

I'm... comfortable enough with basic cattleya care. I've never rebloomed one, but the ones I have are growing roots and psuedobulbs like crazy. A few of them just finished off a new growth and I'm hoping for a sheath on some of them.

I'm just not sure what to do with such young orchids lol.

It just might. The generic label on the bag said "White cattleya with coloured lip" on it so it's a very strong possibility.

Im just extremely clueless about how this tag system works so I figured I'd ask.






Thanks! I've found cattleyas really excite me with how they grow. So I think in really going to enjoy this too.



They all looked like this, and I've never seen them before so I didn't really have an idea of what I should be looking for. I'm glad I can use these guys as a model for what I should look for. I shall!





I do love mounting my cattleyas. So that shall be it's fate I think.
The other still looks to young to mount. It's so tiny!
Did gardentheater also buy one like this? How exciting.

I paid $13 for mine. Still haven't tried eBay yet. I've day





I'm very excited for it... I'd love to find Walkeriana in other colours as well. Blue... I have a thing for "blue" orchids. Those purples make me swoon.
I'm really hoping the form on the walkeriana is nice.





Oh no! That's so sad! I hope one falls into your lap somtime soon.
Honestly this box store stinks too. I hardly ever shop for flowers or plants there. Their variety sucks.
I was very excited to see these though.
Thank you!




I remembered you and that post the moment I saw them!
I checked as well as I could in the store. But I couldn't see all that well.
They passed basic inspection the night I brought them home, but I put them in an isolated room anyhow until I can repot them and thoroughly check everything.

I'm considering giving everything a dip in pesticide as I buy them. As much as I dislike pesticides, the critters are sure hard to get rid of indoors. And I feel like a quick preventative step could save a lot of time

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good stuff :) you will find the bag babies a good deal. you can take em back if you kill em.

I have/had 3 of my bag babies bloom and bud. Got a bag baby vanda got fat buds on it. Hope I can get to them in time.

You got nice bag babies to love for a long time. nothing wrong with bag babies. You find some surprises in there like orchid treasure hunting in the safety of the garden dept

Very nice finds! Good luck with them. Younger cattleyas are just like older cattleyas. I don't really think they are any harder to grow. Just be sure that all your cattleyas have a good source of calcium. I grow my walkeriana in a plastic vanda basket with a layer of lava rock. Seems to be happy. Mounting would work well, too. Good luck!

I can? That is good news.

I hope the walkeriana is close to blooming... I went back and looked at every single one they had. Ended up with one more.







That's a relief.... so far cattleyas are proving to be easy growers for me. Let's hope blooming is easy to.

Thank you!

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Wow, lucky you, you found a walkeriana at Home Depot! They seem to fetch high prices on ebay...wow, I truly wish my local HD can carry more interesting orchids than "just add ice" phals.

Even though I've been growing orchids for so many years and I've bought almost all my orchids from various orchid vendors and nurseries, I still cannot resist checking into Lowe's for the bag babies. You can really find some gems if you're lucky (like the walkeriana :lol: ). A while ago I've gotten some plants like Den aggregatum and Encyclia alata. I also found an overgrown Lc Volcano Sunset 'Yuki," which has 3 sheaths right now.

By the way, be sure to let your walkeriana dry out a bit between waterings. Keep up the air circulation because I find the species very prone to rot. Good luck!

Both of these like to be watered and then left to dry out completely. The Schilleriana likes a medium sized media while the Walkeriana likes to be mounted or a larger media. Both of these will flower next fall. They love light. Nothing special about them except for normal catt culture. High N food now and when half grown switch to lower N higher P and K ratio. Clean them up. There are more growths under those sheaths. Repot in April or May.

You know. My home depot gets lots of phals, but I've never seen an actual "Just add Ice" phal.
They do? Woot! Win for me.
Unfortunately my bag babies are strictly cattleya. I would love to have found some dens, vandas, and a brassavola.
Actually there was one Bc. Huge plant in great shape. The flowers were ugly though. And I like Bc crosses.
Maybe homedepot only gets cattleya types in.
I'd love my Lowe's to stay importing these guys. That seems to be where the variety is.

That's a gorgeous orange cattleya! I'm on the hunt now! I did pick up one more bag baby from them. An orange art shade. Lc Fire Dance 'Patricia' . Looks to be a nice red orange.

I think I intend on mounting the walkeriana. I'm going very well with mounted cattleya. Which should suit it fine.


Excellent and concise! Does that make sense? Lol.
Perfect information.
You know. I think I read you mentioning that fertiliser thing somewhere. So I've been automatically doing that for my cattleyas.

I'm debating a calcium supplement. I hear cattleya love it. But then again my water is pretty hard so I never considered they might need it. I think I heard mention that the calcium in my tap water isn't readily available to them.

Really think the schilleriana will flower next year? The tallest growth is 4". I sure hope so.

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Schilleriana are not tall plants. Mine are only 4-5 inches.

Really? That's a relief. I really thought I read somewhere that this hybrid gets around 2 feet.

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They look good. :D The only cattleya I have is a bag baby. :P It bloomed for me the first time this summer. (Put flower spike on within a week of being put outside) Had it a year and a half maybe. And it was much sadder and smaller looking than yours. So you have some good ones. Good luck getting them to bloom!!

Nice...the plants look healthy

Every time I go to HD, I look for those bags and they are doing great, recently I got a piece a cedar,8' long cut in different pieces, drilled some holes and that's going to be where I will mount some cats.

Nice score! I picked up a Cat. 'Orange treat' in the netting type package at Lowes yesterday. Looks healthy.

nlm, drill lots and lots of holes. I do this with my rescue boards and they orchids really take off.

Thank you#






good plan! Economical too!




I just googled it! Beautiful cattleya!





Indeed! Unfortunately I hate the look of cedar boards. The shop down the street has done very nice cork pieces though.

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Terrific finds!!!!

Thanks you James, I will open more , I like to work with tools anyway. norma

My local Home Depot never has anything but Phals. I just picked up a Cattleta in a net type package at Lowes though.
But Lowes seems to mainly carry Phals here. At least they get the in the bag catts!