Masdevallia floribunda care
 

This is my first Masdevallia so would really like some pointers on care. I picked this guy up cheap from ebay thinking I'll try to grow a easy one first up.

I'm in NYC and primarily a windowsill/artificial light grower. Summer temps hit 30C/86F. I can maintain humidity 60% and above. All my plants are in semihydro and are doing incredibly well under my conditions

But this was a Masdy so I bought a kool-log and mounted the floribunda on it yesterday (I got it yesterday). My reasoning was maybe my conditions would be too warm for the plant. The plant looks very healthy with new growth and roots. It was in moss and is on the kool-log with fresh moss. This morning I toched the kool-log and was shocked to find how cold it was. The moss is also very wet. I have a fan going 24/7 so my grow space has good airflow.

My question is, do I really need the kool-log for this species? I think this is a warmth tolerant species so under my culture conditions should I just switch to semihydro? or stick with the kool-log. I don't really want to kill this because I kept it too cold. I'm tempted to buy a temperature probe and stick it in the moss just to see with the internal temperature is.

Any/all advice on this species (or any other warmth tolerant ones)will be very much appreciated.

It tolerated steady 80-85 F / 26-29C temperatures here. I work too much to water every day. If I had kept it wet it would still be alive.

Hmm. Thank you. Maybe I should just switch it to semihydro then. Would certainly make my life easier. I will wait and see. I think the plant is already stressed with the shipping and since it was in sphagnum all along it wouldn't have to adapt too much. Just worried I'm keeping it too cold.

It is temperature tolerant. It can grow on the cooler side. A safe low end temperature is 50 F.

It does not need to be grown sopping wet. It just needs to be grown consistently moist. It is not necessary to water everyday unless the potting media dries out completely everyday.

The potting media should not be bone dry, but rather a tiny bit damp before it needs to be watered again. A 1 day complete dry out will not do any harm.

Grow under bright shade to the low end of moderately bright indirect light.

They are pretty easy plants, but there are some little things to know (based on my experience growing them in a heated Seattle GH):
- In the dog days of summer, hot without nighttime cooling off makes them drop leaves / go yellow / die off quickly. We get that naturally here where its rare to have 70 degree nights.
Nighttime temps in high 50s at night makes them happy(ish) in summer. They can tolerate days in 90s - 100 even, but not many in a row... If you get cooled off each night pretty well, they sort of tolerate things without dying.
You combat those hot days with humidity and air flow, keeping pots cool. You might use a cooler if your growing area is consistently above 65 at night.

I would think cooling is unnecessary in fall / winter - unless you are having Indian summer / hot fall in the high 80s. But again, not sure how hot you keep your nighttime temps in your house / windowsill.

- they get bacterial rot / fungal spots on leaves sorta easy. pest management and airflow are important - the leaves look nasty if you have stagnant air - root growth also does better with a breeze.

winter is awesome on them though.

watering - people focus on it too much, they like clean water I've heard, but Seattle water is really good. Aim for moist moss that isn't dripping. Root loss can become a problem with constantly wet and stale media.

Repotting yearly seems to be smart - though sometimes I don't get to it. Big plants can be difficult - you might want to divide rather than grow giant specimens as root loss goes bonkers in bigger pots with lots of moss & roots. I haven't figured out a good system to maintain a giant specimen.