Cattleya New Growth question
 

Hello,

I have a couple of Cattleyas that started new growth leaders this past Spring. Each has one leader. My question is how long does it take for this new leader to mature and hopefully produce a flower spike? I realize it may be different from one type of Cattleya to another but I am looking for what's an average time frame.

Thanks in advance!

Your right it depends on the plant. It also depends on your growing conditions. Be patient and keep track from when you see the new growth to blooms. Remember though not every new growth produces flowers. It takes months for them to develop. I have never kept track so I can't give you a time frame. But you could maybe see blooms at the end of summer, fall or winter. It's hard to say since I don't know how big your growths are too. Good luck and post pics when you get blooms! I know it's hard but growing orchids requires patients!

Do you have names for your Catts? If you do, people might be able to tell you how long it takes for your particular plants' leads to mature.

There are cattleyas that bloom once a year and others that bloom twice or even several times a year. The new lead will mature accordingly. I keep 5 x 8 index cards for each orchid and record when the new lead starts and when the bloom comes so that I'll have a general idea when to expect flowers.

Cattleya´s has growth cycles.

simplified:
growth flower rest
or
growth rest flower

they will have one, two or maybe even three growth cycle per year.

For your info Mach5...I have a friend who divided his cattleya Ports of Paradise in April, and gave me four divisions. I re-potted them, and they had some "recovering" to do in my greenhouse. They ALL have at least one new growth, at least one has two new growths. The growths are between four to eight inches tall. I expect to have blooms sometime in December/January. Hope this helps to give you a time frame... BettyE. :)

I like a lot of the previous answers. I would say anywhere from 2-12 months, depending on the species or hybrid and your conditions.

I believe that hybrids that bloom more than once a year, still take about 6 months or so for the individual growths to mature before spiking - they just generally always have new growth on them, so growths mature at different times ? I haven't actually noted how long it takes individual growths on free bloomers to mature, however.

I would expect 6 months or so (possibly longer) for growths to mature.

Thank you all for your expert responses!! I was asked to post the names of the Catts in question. The name tag reads: HC540 EPIC. JACKIE BRIGHT YELLOW W/EPICAT. I also posted a couple of pics. As you can see it's got the leader growing now. I will post a pic of the other Catt as soon as I can but the tag on this one reads: (LC. EDGARD VANBELLE X C. INTERMEDIA) X BLC. MAGIC MEADOW "GREEN GENIUS". Also note that these orchids have been repotted into a bark mix and not in moss anymore. Thank you again guys!!

http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/b...a/IMG_9051.jpg

http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/b...a/IMG_9052.jpg

Oct-nov this year if it puts out a bloom.