Growing YOUNG Cattleyas 🌱🌸 - new trends, innovative practices and best practices a

[Ray]

I don’t know if it still exists, but back in the early 80’s, I visited a cut flower nursery in between Campinas and Cosmopolis, BR, and they had acres of catts growing on slat benches of live sphagnum under ~50% lath shading.

Kim is “singing my song” with his “heresy” about watering. If you’ve ever had the opportunity to see cattleyas in the wild, they are dripping most of the time. Folks don’t result in root rot if they “over-water”, they do so when they “under-air” their plants.

As a brief aside, folks are having a hard time getting quality sphagnum right now, so for ex-flask seedlings in tiny pots, loose, uncompressed Grodan rock wool mini-cubes are a reasonable substitute.

[Shadeflower]

well said Kim,
that is very well explained that little baby seedlings need completely different care to the mature fully grown ones.

I think the advice of letting Catts dry out between waterings is still good advice on the whole. Not everyone grows seedlings to know how much water/humidity roots need. It's very easy to overwater or underwater so to most hobby growers who don't want to get to know the different colors a root will display depending on its saturation level ( I judge mine from 0%- 25% - 50% - 75% - 100% based on their "greenness"). 25-50% is where they grow best but that is so tricky to maintain. You go out shopping at it has dropped from 20% to 10% already unless you use the right substrate.

For most hobby growers the advice of a dry/wet cycle is probably good advice so that the most amount of cattleya's being grown in homes survive.

Don't forget even this orchid that was only being watered once every 2 weeks has survived and can bounce back with the right care which is better than the orchid rotting away completely

[InnaK]

I am on my second quest to grow dowiana to bloom size plant. These year I acquired few 4n seedlings of dowiana v. aurea from H&R, half expecting some of them to die. They arrived in net pots, and one small community pot that needed replanting. I kept them outside right upon arrival, with good exposure to sun in mornings and afternoons. While the plants were doing well, the roots outside of the net pots got dry under the sun. My answer to this problem was to place net pots into slightly larger plastic pots, and filling the gap with perlite chunks. The plants definitely love this setup, I can see new roots sprouting between perlite, and I already have second round of new growths on all larger plants while small ones doubled in size. The plant in clay pot is a cross between dowiana v. aurea 4N and Mareeba Tiger Dark 4N. The latter is in mix of LECA, large bark chunks and charcoal, it responded well to this mix. However, I understand the fact that while these mixes work well in hot , humid and fairly wet NJ summers, and we have been having rather wet summer overall, I would have to get creative once the plants go back in the house.
I have tried spagnum moss set up for young plants, and while it worked well during cold months in the house, I experienced a loss of new growths during summer, as the moss would not get a change to dry for a month at a time or more, due to combination of rains and high humidity. I can see that spagnum moss would work well in controlled environment, but my regimen is to to take plants outside for summer so I stay away from moss in cattleya pots.

[SADE2020]

I am bumping up this thread ;-) to ask some more opinions. All though, lots of great statements has been made.

1) There was one questing isurus79 asked: How do you keep root disturbance in a media that need to be change every other year? or even why moving in 3 different pot size until adults the cattleyas when roots should not be disturb.

2) Then, my mom is a very experienced and also very traditional grower, mostly Catts and Dend in a tropical weather (Dominican Republic). All of her plants are pot in Grey Grava or Carbon, just recently she starter placed Almond Shells and rest of broken clay pots on the bottom of the Catts. She transfer small plants from 2 inch pots to 10-12 inch black pots (she don’t care to see the roots that much), and from there just let them grow for years or until the plastic pot break.

What’s your opinion in regard to grava ?
Why is never mentioned here in the forum?
Does Anyone use 100% lecca without been SH with Cattas.

Cheers and hope everyone is well!!

Here are some of my mom current blooms:

[Roberta]

I think that maybe a discussion of medium, in isolation, is misplaced. The important question is, "What are you trying to achieve?" A small seedling has little roots, and needs more constant moisture. Sphagnum is excellent for that, tightly packed. Small bark in a plastic pot, maybe with a bit of water in a tray under it, might accomplish the same thing. For a larger plant (seedling or otherwise) loose sphagnum in a net pot might be just the thing to provide good moisture but with drying out. (Remembering that crispy-dry sphagnum is really hard to re-wet_ But a similar result can be obtained with bark in a plastic pot, or a terracotta pot. A larger Catt might do better in a basket with larger bark, with more drying between waterings. Factor in how often you water, how high your humidity is, what's the air flow like? And of course, semi-hydro is another approach with variations to achieve a set of conditions. So once you establish the goal, there is probably more than one way to accomplish that. In fact, probably there are quite a few ways. Establish the destination, then plan the route.

[Shadeflower]

Nice catts there Sade.

Does Anyone use 100% lecca without been SH with Cattas.

I will just address this question. lecca is really good at not absorbing too much water and releasing it slowly and evenly. But lecca will suck moisture from its surroundings, if lecca gets too dry it literally sucks the moisture out of roots. You won't see the damage but when this happens roots tend to stop growing because they've been damaged by getting dried excessively. They can generally tolerate drying but lecca dessicates roots even more.
So lecca by itself can work if you constantly keep it from drying out but that is pretty much S/H

[SADE2020]

Originally Posted by Roberta

I think that maybe a discussion of the medium, in isolation, is misplaced. The important question is, "What are you trying to achieve?"

So once you establish the goal, there is probably more than one way to accomplish that. In fact, probably there are quite a few ways. Establish the destination, then plan the route.

Thanks, Roberta.
I don't have any particular goal, other than growing beautiful plants, I think that to do that, I need to understand all my options. In the past, I've applied or implemented too quick techniques or culture without seeing the whole picture and I ended up frustrated and working twice...

With all your comments at the end, I can "put together a plan to archive what I want"

Though the subject is not only for me to learn, after all, we all enjoy and learn also!

[isurus79]

What is grava?

[Dorchid]

¡Son hermosas!

*Gravel

[isurus79]

Originally Posted by Dorchid

¡Son hermosas!

*Gravel

Oh! Thanks!