Another Flask Attempt - Orchid Board

kg5 · #1 01-29-2016, 05:50 AM

I have been looking for some of the Grammatophyllum and they do not come up very often.

Have got a speciosum and a speciosum wallisii.

Found an advanced Grammatophyllum that was a very good price mailed. The flask is Gram elegans x Gram rumphianum and it arrived today.

Left it on the kitchen bench for a couple of hours near an open window out of the sun and about 5pm the temp was still 34c or 93f and 90%+ humidity so I took the lid of a plastic flask.

Leaves were soft at 1st but 3.5 hours later and the leaves have stretched up over the top of the flask plus the leaves have hardened nicely already.

It is just the perfect time to open a flask up and the humidity will not stop now for some months.

Can see 11 large plants (16cm or 6.5") with advanced root systems but there is another 15 or so that are half the size ( 7cm to 9cm or 3" to 3.5") and I can not tell how the root systems are going on these smaller plants.

So the plan is now to let them settle in for a couple of days and then remove them from the jell and pot them into a medium that hold a bit more moisture than a straight bark mix. Then leave them in a shaded but bright area for some time and slowly bring them into 50% shade for the 1st stage.

Any comments very much appreciated. I am very new to doing this.

Fairorchids · #2 01-29-2016, 06:27 AM

See thread on 'Using a terrarium to grow seedlings' further down in this forum. In post No. 5 there is a link to my instructions on how to deal with seedlings from flask.

kg5 · #3 01-29-2016, 07:05 AM

Thank you very much for the link.

kg5 · #4 01-30-2016, 10:50 PM

So have potted the orchids from out of the flask and have followed Fairorchids instruction as best I could. These instruction are very good.

The roots are very tangled as it looks like too many plants have grown in a small container.

The grow gel was very hard to move. It took some time even with lukewarm water. But carefully tried to loosen the gel as best I could. Got about 90% of the gel off.

It was really easy to separated the deflasking orchid into 2 halfs. It was also good as the size of 1/2 fitted nicely into 2 x 90mm or 31/2" posts.

It is really humid here still and about 30c or 80f. It surprises me how moist the potting mixture is staying. It is about 24hrs after potting them and the potting mix is still as wet as when I potted them. Spent some time getting the sphagnum moss into between the orchids. I used the end of a small paint brush to do this.

They look in great condition to me but it is only 24hrs. Can count 25+ orchids.

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dendro king · #5 01-31-2016, 11:25 PM

Guess who's seed that was

kg5 · #6 01-31-2016, 11:44 PM

Hi dendro king.

Nice to know it is an in house orchid buy.

There is not many Grammatophyllum that come onto the Aussie market so it makes plants easy to know where they come from.

Put a 600mm high Grammatophyllum speciosum through a Brisbane bay island winter. It just so happened to be the coldest 6 week we have had in a long time. At night it did not go over 3c for 2 weeks and not over 7c for 4 weeks basically. The speciosum coped very well I was very surprised.

It will never be a 5m monster but 2m is on the cards. I am going to plant it on top of a 2.4m post.

The flask orchids are looking very nice indeed.

dendro king · #7 01-31-2016, 11:52 PM

Nice, my speciosum is really hardy too, grow freaking quick too! Yours should be a beast in a few years.

estación seca · #8 02-01-2016, 12:48 AM

Grammatophyllum speciosum is just a giant Cymbidium, LOL.

kg5 · #9 02-01-2016, 03:10 AM

Yes estación seca they do look alike.lol

Quote:

Grammatophyllum speciosum is just a giant Cymbidium, LOL.

I was told they would never grow here and a grower/seller totally treated me very badly........ and I hope they read this.

Well the answer to that is yes they will grow in sub-tropic winter.

Back to the deflasked orchids.

My potted flask orchids are 3 days old and are in the best of shape.

Is it to early to start them on my foliage fertilzer program? Leaves look and feel strong!

estación seca · #10 02-01-2016, 10:21 AM

I have a small G speciosum seedling from a Carter & Holmes flash special last fall (3 growths, tallest about 2.5 feet / 900mm.) I'm going to divide it when it's a little bigger in a year or so and try one piece outdoors in our summer in dappled shade. We get up to 115+ F / 45+C every summer. I've read of people growing it in a wheelbarrow so they can more easily move it inside or outdoors as seasons change. If it lives I might do that for laughs at our spring show.

We get overnight frost almost every winter so I'm keeping it in the sunroom. Just had a winter storm blow through last night with a downpour and high winds. Had to navigate around overturned trash barrels blown all over the streets this morning. Expecting frost at my place tonight through Friday night.