Cym. sinense Yang Min Jin
 

I got a bare-root Cymbidium sinense Yang Min Jin at the Tamiami show from Ten Shin Gardens. I have wanted to try these because I think I can give them what they want, including cool winters outdoors. Marty at the booth strongly emphasized cool, but not freezing, winter nights, and we discussed my usual temperatures. He thought they would be fine.

I chose this plant because it has all-green leaves. It was less expensive than the variegated ones. It has three pseudobulbs, and had two inflorescences when I bought it. TSA examined my luggage carefully. They broke off one flower stalk and damaged the other.

When I got home I went to the Ten Shin Web site and looked this one up. The photos on the Web site show variegated leaves. My plant not only had a name tag in the bag, it had a paper label stuck to the label with the same Chinese characters on the plastic label.

Does Yang Min Jin develop variegation later, when bigger?

I potted it into a tall ceramic container with LECA as medium. The roots extend more than 3/4 the way down the container.

I will add photos later.

"Way back when", I imported about 500 "Chinese" cymbidium a month, mostly 2 or 3 matures-bulbs, plus a new growth and in-spike. They do great in S/H culture, by the way.

Some - not all - of the variegated ones required brighter light to show off the variegation more strongly, but I don't recall any being solid green, then having variegation later.

The roots are too long to fit into any of the S/H containers I have without risking breaking them or I would have tried that. I have a number of other Cyms in S/H.

Firstly, if roots are too long and you do not want to cut them, simply and gently "screw" them into the pot. Works every time.

As far as variegation goes, many of the Asian so call "variegated" are not stable. They start as green bulbs and as they mature, they finally have the strength to send out variegated leaved bulbs. These are removed and given another name. Rather deceptive but that seems to be the way of the market. That said, there are many truly stable variegated plants which will always bloom with a variegation.

That's too bad about the damage. One would think they could be a bit more careful.

I just checked one of my Taiwanese books on Cymbidium sinense Yang Ming Jin (陽明錦). The leaves are actually green for this variety. it is a flower variety. The flower shape is regular but the colour is reddish/pink/coral. Widtype flower have dark brown colour. However, this variety may bloom regular flower colour sometimes (so unstable).

When I purchase Asian Cymbidiums, I always ask for stable varieties (some are more stable than the others). The stable ones will cost you more.

In terms of potting, as Cym ladye said, wet the roots to make sure that they are pliable, don't cut off any roots. For potting mix, I only use traditional Japanese Cymbidium mix only for all my Asian Cymbidiums, no substitution.

I hope this helps