Project 2015 Spring: Podangis dactyloceras
 

I think this is in the Vanda alliance? I was intrigued by this plant. It was one of the five finalist for the 2015 Project. It did not win, but I wanted to get one anyway.

I hope there is a side project for this plant!

https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7691/...6cb48275_o.jpgPodangis dactyloceras by MattWoelfsen, on Flickr

https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7740/...68584ff7_o.jpgPodangis dactyloceras by MattWoelfsen, on Flickr

I ordered this too. I'm a bit nervous about keeping it alive.

There was talk of a side project. I hope there is one.

I don't think there is any one saying that you can't start start your own project. Just announce that you are starting one. I will bet you would have a lot of takers!...Jean

I am in. Mine will get here tomorrow.

I'm also in, mine will arrive next week! Seeing how many people are getting it, I'll make a subproject thread for it and maybe also the Den cucumerinum.

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If you want I can rename this thread as side project, and move it to the member project forum instead of starting a new thread. Let me know!

I've got it as well as the cuke.


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Mine arrived today!
I think we bought it at the same nursery Camile :)
It came mounted, my first mounted one actually, so am a little nervous about the watering!
I didn't really like the wood it is mounted on and it was put on with staples, don't know if that is such a good idea either, wondering if it is a good idea to take it off the mount and put it on the better looking branch of grape wood i have here or to leave on this mount staples and all and just see what happens. idea's on what to do are welcome :biggrin:

Whoowhoooo! Yes let us make this the thread and we can all start talking about our Podangis. Thank you!

Podangis dactyloceras
 

Pixi, I've been thinking about your experience....all my mounted plants are tied on with fishing line--which I remove after a couple of months when the plant is firmly attached to the mounted product. I'm thinking that staples are metallic and after a length of time, those staples will rust and could be toxic to the plant?

If it were mine, I think I would re-mount it using something like fish line?

It would be informative to watch your plant grow mounted to compare it with other plants that are potted--like mine.

Done! :)

Claessen? I'm ordering before the weekend so it will ship on Monday. I already got a Podangis from him last summer (3 well established plants on 1 mount!) but I really have trouble with mounts and they died one by one. So the new one will be potted up as soon as I get it, that's how I had successfully grown my first Podangis 5-6 years ago. Which died of rot one rainy summer when I forgot the plant outside...

I have to be honest i am worrying about the effect of the staples on the roots too. Today i took off a few dead roots with tweezers, cleaned it up a bit so it would look even better on the picture attached :D

I am thinking about potting them up too, i realise the need to keep them hydrated enough seems an impossible task on this piece of what looks like cedar wood without placing them in a terrarium of some sorts or am i wrong?

And yes Camille i got it from Claessen too :)

I've had one for about 18 months. I'm growing mine in a plastic net pot inside a clay pot. It seems to be doing OK, but I would say it isn't thriving. So !'m looking forward to learning what works for all of you!

Pixi, looking at your picture of your stapled Podangis...I am reminded of Tolumnia orchid...that plant is described as an equitant--like Podangis. There are also similarities in appearance and cultural requirements. Except Podangis seem to like more heat and humidity.

My plant is in a pot, growing in Orchiata, pumice, and coal chunks. Since it is in that media, I'm thinking of getting another Podangis and growing it like Tolumnia.

I ordered mine with my pre-order for the MOS show! Yay, no shipping and I will get a discount! They had the Amesiella as well. Woot!

Podangis dactyloceras (Project 16 [side] - Spring 2015)
 

Congratulations--great timing on the purchase. please post a picture of your plant--the Podangis here and the Amesiella monticola over there!

Got mine yesterday! :) Both project orders arrived the same day. Traveling with the Podangis were Dendrobium tetragonum var. giganteum, Oncidium Kutoo CT Little Cherry, Slc. Bright Circle, and Oncidium ornithorhynchum

So here is my Podangis. It's from the same grower as Pixi, so it's also stapled to the mount. I regret killing the one I got in the fall, those were very well established on their mount. But i'm not going to complain, this one was only 7€ so fine with me if it's a freshly mounted plant!

Seeing my track record with mounts, I want to pot this one. But I have no idea what is the best potting medium for this orchid. Thoughts?

Camille, my potted Podangis came in Orchiata bark, pumice and charcoal. It was very loosely packed. It is really a good price you and Pixi got for a three growth plant. My single growth plant was US$20.00 I just bought a mounted one for US$23.

This grower tends to be cheap, and I remember when I was visiting the greenhouses a bit over 2 years ago that he had a bunch of these in flasks in their lab. So these are home grown, and probably why they cost less.

I might pot one and mount one. I've been researching on internet, and it seems that they overall do better mounted. I just got a new vase that could work well to keep a mount inside (to raise the humidity a bit), and add some sphag over the roots of the mounted one.

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I should have asked about the potting before I ordered. I ordered bark (no orchiata here) but not charcoal or perlite...

Yours actually looks bigger then mine Camille!

Mine is still hanging in my kitchen :lol: haven't had the time to put it anywhere else yet ( stomach bug going around the house and birthdays to celebrate) but it seems to like where it is for now i guess since the leaves are slowly fanning out. i spray the roots in the morning, sometimes like the day before yesterday when ( for The Netherlands) it was warm i misted it a little as soon as the sun was out of my kitchen.
i also took one staple out ( and broke a root :( ) and surprisingly the plant was attached to the wood, then i tried to take out the other two but that was impossible because the roots were growing up and over the staples.. so i am hoping the staples are not going to rust because i see no way of getting the plants free of them..

i am curious about the Oncidium Kutoo CT Little Cherry, was it in spike? It was on my list too!
i'm going to visit the nursery at the end of this month to pick up my new C. Maxima and probably come back with a lot more...

I haven't tried removing staples yet, but at least one of the plants seems to have a root or 2 firmly attached to the mount.

No, the Onc isn't in spike/bloom. It's such a tiny little plant! I'd love to go back down to the nursery, but it's 120 km from here and we don't have a car and by public transport it takes 3 hours to get there. When I went to visit it was with an ex-colleague who likes orchids too, and he offered me a ride down. I came back with 6-7 plants! We could go down on the motorcycle, but it means I can't buy orchids... Have you visited before? His greenhouses are really nice, and clean, and there's a separate building where you can have some coffee/tea. I love that's there's a window in that room that gives you a view on the shelves and shelves of flasks they have...

It is about that far for me too, but i have a car so it's a bit easier.
i decided to give it one more go to get the staples off and succeeded!
2 of the growths were established but one fell of once the staples gave way.
this one has new roots coming which is good because the staples already did a gruesome job on the roots that got stuck under them.
i mounted it on a piece of grape wood i had lying around and it looks okay for a first timer , now fingers crossed that it'll catch hold on the wood soon :blushing:

Small pic, but here's mine: I'm considering mounting it and putting it in my terrarium.

Attachment 112096

The plants you guys are getting in the US just seem huge compared to any I've seen in Europe. Even my first plant which had over a dozen growths at the time it died didn't have fans are large as yours.

Just received mine today during lunch time. It looked okay in the pot but after I went home and unpotted it, only to find all roots were rotten.

ChryT,

I would contact the grower and have them send you another. I don't think that will survive.

Camille, my plant is about 3 inches across in leaf span and three inches tall. It's in a 2 inch pot. Maybe the photos make it look big? It seems very tiny to me. :)

ChryT I agree with Melissa. Email the grower and ask for a replacement.

The largest fan on mine is under 2 inches each way. My first Podangis was only slightly larger if I remember right. Maybe the clone commonly found in Europe is smaller than the US one?

shadytrake, RandomGemini,

Sent an email to the seller yesterday night with photos and still waiting for reply. Unfortunately, it's not the only rootless plant in the whole order.

That's certainly a possibility. It's probably like everything else in the US. We have gigantic kitchens, drive huge cars... it would not shock me if the orchids grown here are just bigger too. LOL!

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This sucks. I hope they offer you a replacement. I would be angry about that.. and as a result of your experience, I will now be checking the roots on my other plants from my most recent order.

My Podangis came today. I ordered it with my Amsiella monticola for the main project as well as a Paph villosum. I put pictures of the other two plants in the main project thread.

I'm a little concerned about the roots on this one. Should I contact the seller or is it going to be okay?

I have repotted it into a 3" clay pot and small lava rock.

I was angry and still am. The seller ignored my email, it's been three days since I sent them photos and no reply from them.


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I picked up my project plants at the show today. Yay! My Podangis is HUGE! One fan is 6" wide at least and the other fan is 4" wide. I pulled it out of the pot, checked the roots, and then repotted with a chunkier mix in a 4" clay azalea pot. I'll post a picture tomorrow.

Call them on the phone on Monday. I found that a couple of the orchid growers I contacted, were not tech savvy people and their email addresses were maintained by a relative or a third party who maintained the website and those people checked their emails infrequently at best.

The best way to get in touch with most growers is to pick up the phone. If you call them and tell them you sent them an email, they'll more than likely check it and see that your complaint is more than valid.

Photos of my plant! For reference, that is a 1 quart can. The plant is in a 4" pot with a loose mixture of bark, charcoal, sponge rock, and peat chunks. I re-potted into the clay because the plastic pots get so warm and stay too wet.

Seeing the size of your plant, I'm more and more convinced that the EU clones of this species are affected by dwarfism. That or it's simply because everything is bigger in the USA! :rofl:

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Oh, and something I came across is my growing notes for the first Podangis I had for a bit over 2 years and which died in 2011. The grower I got it from had told me that one of the tricks with this species is to keep it somewhat cool at night in the winter if possible, and well as diminish watering (I was misting the mount only 1-2 times a week). They are also somewhat salt sensitive, so careful with the fertilizer. As I also discovered myself, the roots of this species are very prone to rotting if kept too wet. This is one of the main reasons that they are primarily grown mounted...

That is indeed a huge plant! I think Camille was right, it seems that the size plants we get here a way smaller then in the USA. Makes me wonder if the ones we got are even flowering size.. Before mine get's even near this size if it ever does we will be years on!

It's probably near flowering size. My first podangis wasn't much larger (and had 3 fans) and produced something like 10 spikes!

(on a side note, the Oncidium Kutoo CT Little Cherry I got in the same order - and that you mentioned you liked- has completely rotted rots... I emailed Claessen, and am waiting for a reply... Since thre is one small new growth just putting out a few roots, I've put it in S/H. But I don't have high hopes.)

I decided to hang it right next to my Phrag kovachii. It stays a bit cooler than other plants during the day, but gets nice bright filtered sun during the AM. The loose mixture plus the azalea pot will allow more air flow movement.

Then i will wait patiently for it to grow bigger and show me those pretty paperwhite flowers!
:)