Buds Growing inside sheath finally!!!
 

This is Lc Elizabeth Off "Golden Sands" AM/AOS.
I bought this in flower last March.
It grew two pbs during the summer and both of them had large sheath on them.
The forever long anxiety/worry is finally over as I see tiny little things (at least two buds in each) growing inside both sheaths. yay!!! :D

I am so excited as I love the flowers on this plant a lot.
Unfortunately, it is once a year bloomer.

I trimmed off the top part of the sheaths as recommened by the grower.

Yayyyyy!!!! Excellent! I'm quite happy for you! One word of caution, though: A few times when I have trimmed sheaths, they ended up trapping water, and the buds rotted. Be cautious about getting any excess water in there! (even from misting) Can't wait to see it bloom!!!!!!!

Good advice! I've had the same thing happen to me!!

Woo hoo!

Hi NYC. I have never heard of trimming the ends of the blooms sheaths before. I may try that on my Blc. Chia Lin 'New City', that is holding a sheath on me right now, as well! I'm glad I stumbled on this post today. :-)

Elliot- The main reason for trimming the sheath on cattleyas is exactly that! To keep the developing buds from rotting due to trapped moisture!
I'm not really sure how necessary it is, but I guess it does happen to some people with certain growing condition. I personally don't feel the need to, but since I've been waiting for so long, and the sheath seems rather long for the buds to grow in, I thought I would do it just in case it helps. :)

I only mist exposed roots and nothing else. Well, the only exception is with my dendrobiums. I mist them everywhere just for fun and I don't have to worry about rotting anything on them.

Upnorthorchids- The seller/grower of this cattleya advised me to trim the tip of sheaths to keep the inside from getting too moist and thus leading to possible bud rot. It is not a must. This is my first time doing it. I don't trim my other catts and they bloom just fine so far.

I too trim the sheaths, but only of they show signs if being less than ideal. If they really start to get brown I'll even peel them back to expose any developing buds.

NYC - I'm glad you mentioned that it's not always necessary to trim the sheath. I have had some catts bloom from a pseudobulb that I removed the sloughed sheath from, thinking it was not mature enough. Then a month or so later it bloomed! (This was on a Blc. Ports of Paradise 'Emerald Isle')

My Blc. Chia Lin 'New City', however, has had sheaths slough off before the buds begin to grow out, and I think moisture in the sheath may have been the culprit. So I actually already tried it right away. ;)

All the way down to where the sheath and buds start??
It doesn't dry out the little buds I guess.
Good to know!

---------- Post added at 11:58 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:52 PM ----------

Blc Ports of Paradise is such a beautiful large cattleya! and amazing fragrance! I'm sure it was a nice surprise for you.

Well, sometimes for some reason, sheath will not grow any buds in it and just discard itself, which is one of the main things I hate about cattleyas along with flower life being very short.

A happy report!
 

So it's been almost two weeks since the last post on this catt, but it seemed like forever.

The tiny buds looked like they stopped growing, but it was just me checking it too often. :biggrin:

Now I see one of them is in a cluster of 3 or 4 (which was the most flowers on a spike I've seen for this type), and the other one either 2 or 3.
I am so excited about this as I waited one year to see this.

This was bought with two flowers on. The seller had two other pots of the same plant with tons of leads and flowers, but super expensive. I was told this guy reaches specimen size in three years, so I got the more wallet friendly one.
It grew two leads in my care and now I see a new one starting again. With this speed, I think I will see a fairly large clump soon.
Only wish the flowers lasted longer or even better bloomed more frequently. oh, well...

Pitcures this morning aren't that nice with cloudy sky out the window. hope you can count those little buds in the sheaths! Ok, maybe not. will try new pictures soon when the sun comes out.