Home alone

[Sun rm.N.E.]

Thanks Ray for making trips easier.






I was away for a couple of weeks and left my plants that are planted in Semi-hydro in a house with central heating and low humidity. Even the flowers that were in bud opened nicely as you can see in with this Hwra. Lava Burst. The second picture shows the buds before I left.

[camille1585]

That plant is absolutely stunning! It has so many spikes!
Is this a young plant or have you had it a long time for it to bloom so well?

[Sun rm.N.E.]

Camille

Thanks for the compliment. This plant has bloomed on every new growth since I put it in water culture 3 and a half years ago when it had 1 scrawny growth with poor roots and two little growth buds. It soon took off and bloomed. Two years ago I transferred it to S/H when the next set of new growth were just showing.

It soon reached a critical mass where it seems under pressure to bloom even before the new growth is fully mature. Since I want my plants to bloom in the Winter I cut off all new flower buds last Spring to bring on new growth faster. Each one put out new flowering buds higher up the cut ones so I had to cut them off repeatedly until all potential buds were exhausted.

This clone is 'Puanani' (Beautiful flower in Hawaiian). However, I have a small unnamed clone in water culture now and it too is a fast and prolific bloomer.

[Ranchnanny]

Hi Sun Rm can you tell us the advice Ray gave you for leaving s/h orchids without attention? I will be gone for several days and am worried about them.

Sheridan

[greenbean]

If only my Puanani looked like that! It's on a slow recovery after being rescued from a BB store a couple years ago. After leaving it with my parents this winter while I'm going to college, I may have to nurture it back again! I'd take a piece for myself (because my mom just loves the arrangement it's in and doesn't want to give it up, even though she doesn't actually take care of it) but it's still too small.

Sorry, couldn't help sharing my own story. I find a subject to rant about and off I go!

That is an absolutely jaw-dropping display!

[Sun rm.N.E.]

Hi Evan

Check with me when you are ready. I might have a little water-grown division for your experiment.

[Sun rm.N.E.]

Sheridan

Anything less than a week should not be a problems for well-established plants with more frequent flushing before you leave to make sure they are well hydrated.

I was more concerned about the ones that are putting out brand new root tips into the medium where the evaporation will cause the solution to become too concentrated. For them I flushed many times with tap water and left only tap water in the resevoir. I would not use R/O water or distilled water because the pH will fluctuate wildly due to lack of any buffers that are present in most tapwater

[greenbean]

Maria, you're going to be a bad influence on my malleable college mind, I can tell.