Dormancy conditions for catasetums, etc.
 

I have quit watering and fertilizing. All my catasetums and their alliance are in a separate area so I won't forget and treat them like my other orchids. Should they be under cover or can they be exposed and receive rain? I thought about how they exist in their natural habitat...even though it's a dry season, some rainfall must be inevitable. I live in S. Florida and winter is our dry season.

Bottom line...my orchids got a healthy watering this morning. What will be the potential result? Should I move them under cover?

Those lower temperatures coming this weekend might be something to keep an eye on—from what I’ve gathered here on OB and from some other growers in SFL, some moisture is tolerated as long as temps don’t stay in the 50’s for long. If they were mine, I’d bring them under cover just to have control over the water.

I’m a rookie when it comes to Catasetinae, so hopefully others with actual tenure will chime in—you’re in GOOD hands!

Thank you...I think I'll bring them inside and place them in bright morning sun.

Catasetinae tend to be low-elevation plants. So minimum night temperature should not be much below 55 deg F. Indeed the south Florida climate, in general, is OK for outdoor growing of this group, but you do get the occasional cold snap. (I don't thint that there are any Catasetinae that are native to Florida, probably for that reason)

Roberta, we have one native! Galeandra bicarinata has been vouched for in Miami-Dade County—I’ve never seen one though!

That would be so exciting to see!

I'm in the Keys and I put mine in a spot where they are under cover but get very bright light until early afternoon from Dec 1 until they have reached a size appropriate enough to repot the new growths. Usually late March-April for me here. They get zero water in that timeframe.

Thanks...your environment is similar to mine so I'll do the same. I might have stopped watering too early...around Nov. 1...so I won't know what to do next season until I see how their growth develops.

My rule of thumb for when I start to force the dormancy issue is 1 Dec. In most years my plants are still green then but there have been years when they were as much as 50% defoliated. What it came down to for me was getting them in synch with my personal schedule. I go north for the summer in late May. If those things haven't fully cycled to the point where I was able to get them potted up and start watering before I departed, then they probably were going to be pretty sad looking or totally dead when I got back in Oct. If I let them follow their own schedule, there will be several lost every year.

If I force dormancy by the 12/1/date, it works out and was just trial and error that that's what it's become for me.

We're more subtropical down here than you are and I think that pushes them to want to keep going later into the year. The triggers probably are a high diurnal temp change, shorter hours of light and less rain, none of which have much of a seasonal variation for us except the rain typically. Some years we have a true dry season but last winter, for example, was pretty wet.

A lot of the plants in my collection just keep growing right through the winter and never really even slow down.

That was interesting! Do you miss seeing some of them bloom while you are away?