Pleione formosana in flower
 

I'm really pleased with Pleione formosa this year. I have 8 bulbs and have got 8 flowers so far with a further 7 buds :biggrin:

I started with one bulb from Heratage Orchids in 2011, and it's doubled every year, but this year is the first time that almost every bulb has two flowers.

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3704/1...47d9d243_z.jpg http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7356/1...46f49e97_z.jpg

Beautiful plant and good pictures!

Definitely on my wish list.

Maureen

Stunning! When you get 2 flowers per bulb it is a sign if excellent culture!

Beautiful! Rosie...I was just looking at these in a catalog last night and wondering whether I should get one. I would grow it in a pot like you do, but I was not sure what the culture was like, i.e. if my home would be warm enough and have high enough humidity. What is your culture like?

Awesome.

Kim

Thanks everyone :)

Terracotta, these go dormant and need cold over the winter. I keep the dormant bulbs in my greenhouse which has a 5C minimum over the winter.

Once they are starting to show signs of growth I pot them up and bring them in and they get a min of 15C but more often closer to 19/20C. I've heard some folks in the UK grow them outside for the rest of the year but I keep them back in the greenhouse once it get's warm enough. The UK is not massively hot, probably ranges between 15C and 25C over the summer.

I've never bothered about humidity, it's not that high here and I don't think it matters for these.

Absolutely wonderful, Rosie! I've read about pleione since my first orchid books, and it's great to see a classy plant like this one. Beautiful photos, as always!

Thanks, Rosie!

I think that I would like to give these a try. I have a great place to winter things over, even if it is not a greenhouse. The catalog I saw them for sale in was a regular flowerbulb seller (dahlias, begonias, etc.) but I was wondering if it would be better to get them from a different source.

What would you (all) suggest?

Thanks Rosie, very nice flowers!
I am waiting with anticipations for mine. I ordered them in October and had to put them in the fridge for two
Months (it never gets cold enough here). Now it is sitting in my porch with little buds sticking out!
I need to write to you for advice on what to do after flowering. This is my first try to grow these. Hope mine will be as nice as yours!
Andrew

Wow, these are just great!

@Terra
I ordered 4 from a regular bulb company back in Oct. After spending 2 months in the vegetable drawers in the fridge they are now sending out some buds in my porch.
I think getting them from bulb store is ok
Andrew

Wow! Those are just gorgeous! I need to get some!

Love these, as someone else said, remember seeing them in the orchid books when i was little. They look a little like bletillas, dont they?

Thanks Andrew! This will be new for me...the only terrestrial orchids I have now are some bletilla. They are potted and inside a cool room for the winter. I had one bloom last year and it just caught me by surprise. It was so delicate, I was in awe.

Delightful flowers! I loved the way you potted it and spread itself to give you a wonderful display of blooms.

@Terra
Depending on where you are, Bletilla can be easy to grow. I used to grow it as a flower bed plant in Washington DC. They flowered every May and the clumps kept multiplying to the point that I had to dig some out.
Here in LA I had to put them in the fridge in order to achieve the same kind of results

So beautiful!

Thanks everyone, so pleased with them this year :)

When the flowers are gone I just put them in the greenhouse and water when the medium looks dry. Until the leaves drop and then I take them out the medium, dry them off and store for the winter.

Those interested in them should note the leaves can be very big, each growth has one leaf but it is relatively large compared to the growth.

It's stunning, I did purchase only one bulb at the last show and I so do regret not to get more, next time!

It should multiply. This was just one bulb in 2011. Grown well they have two new shoots each year, and each of those turns into a bulb for the next year, so they can double each year. That's how I've now got 8 :)

Rosie - the species is Plieone formosana.

I'll tell you an interesting thing I learned about them through a little narrative:

Someone sent me a corm to experiment with, so I potted it up in S/H culture. It bloomed nicely, then the foliage came up and it grew well. As Autumn approached and it started to die back, I realized I'd need to give it a winter rest (I just don't do that for my plants), so - being a converted deli container - I snapped a lid on the pot, so it wouldn't get fed and watered, and put it in a cool, shady place. AND FORGOT ABOUT IT UNTIL THE FOLLOWING MAY...

When I remembered it and opened it up, the space between the LECA and the lid was a mashed mass of foliage!

It continued growing nicely for several more years, but the submerged corms all grew on top of the medium, forming an irregular, ugly mass. It then went back into a "semi-terrestrial" mix and was later given away.

Oh, my, what lovely flowers and photos. Great growing, RosieC ! I would be more than pleased. I'd be doing the happy dance. LOL

Thanks Picotee and Ray,

I had thought the name was formosana then saw it as formosa somewhere and thought I had got it wrong. Hmm... I've checked the tag and that's formosana (written by the seller). No idea now where I got the formosa name from. I'll change the thread title, thanks for the correction :)

I take these out the medium each autum and repot each spring, otherwise they would get higher in the medium as the new ones always form higher on the surface, even with standard medium.

Very Nice,Rosie
they are so delicate looking
Photo is great too :)