Phalaenopsis gigantea - long term growing project

[camille1585]

Mine is doing well. It grew a new leaf over the winter, which just recently reached full size and it looks like the oldest leaf is going to wither and die soon.

In October it decided to tease me by starting the very beginning of a spike, which then completely stalled. Something is missing in my care but not sure what!

[tmoney]

well, hopefully the spike will come alive again and give you some flowers this year camille! it's wierd cause in a lot of places you read that gigantea is a "summer bloomer" and warm temp will trigger spiking, but all the forum threads have folks showing blooms in december.

[Jinh]

Just got my Phal Gigantea in early March. The next week it started growing a new leaf, so I suppose I can’t take credit for it.

I repotted it and put it in a grow tent. It gets quite bright light about 18 hours a day, the temp is 80-85 F, and RH is usually 70-80%. I’ve only been watering deeply and fertilizing once a week.

It’s been about 6 weeks, it has started 4 new roots from the base, and I can see about 7 bright green root tips growing down in the media. The new leaf started March 17th, and as of today it is about 3.5 inches.

I haven’t decided if I want to move it outside as temps this weekend will be almost 100 F. Summertime here is VERY hot and humid which I would imagine to be perfect growing conditions, but I’m also hesitant to risk getting critters munching on it or expose it to uncontrolled conditions outdoors.

[K-Sci]

Originally Posted by Mr.Fakename

Nice work Keith, looking good! What are the temps in your greenhouse?

Reviewing this thread I found this post I missed.

Summer days 90-98F daytime, 70F nights
Winter days: 75F daytime (sun warms it more on sunny days). The night setting for heat is 65F.

All my phals grow very quickly with the heat of central Mississippi summers.I've had more flowers and more spikes this winter than I've ever seen before (including other people's plants). Summer fertilizing is 1tsp MSU for RO 1x per week.

-Keith



-Keith

[SADE2020]

I have a single early bird ( premature) flower from my seedlings



All other are converter to SH

[tmoney]

awesome sade! so that is one of the "x sogo white"?

[jje10001]

So I got this gigantea for a pretty decent price, and am looking for some tips on its care.

Background:
- I got it surprisingly at a local flower shop.
- It was a leftover import, which came barerooted, and was bone dry for quite awhile. Unfortunately some roots perished during the time it was dried out.
- I soaked it in water/kelp water for about a day or so to rehydrate the roots & to figure out which roots were still alive.
- I expect the root system to perish at some point, I have another phal (YangYang Blueberry x KS Blue Luedde) acquired earlier from the same shipment whose entire root system died all at once after a month potted into bark, but the plant was healthy enough to immediately push out a replacement root system.
- I live in a temperate environment in an air-conditioned house.
- Winter temperatures go from around 20-22C/68-72F, and summer temperatures go from around 22-25C/72-77F.
- The house has low humidity, from 20% in winter to 40% in summer.
- The leaf span is around 7 inches for the largest leaf- it's quite large even with only three leaves!
- There is a bit of dark staining on the stem, but it seems safe- I treated with some physan just in case.

After rehydrating & cleaning off the roots:


All potted up:


So my general growing conditions:
- I potted it into leca with charcoal chips in a plastic pot, with the goal of a durable and airy mix as I heard that larger plants dislike being repotted. This mix I think also allows me to grow it wetter if necessary (i.e. with wet feet).
- I potted it at 45 degrees to avoid any issues with water in the crown/leaves.
- This pot sits inside a cloche pot, with the goal of a soak on the weekend, and a quick watering under the faucet halfway through the week for a faster wet-dry cycle (~3-5 days).
- It sits at the edge of 3 T6 Barrina LED lights, at a distance of around 8 inches away from the lights. It gets around 12-14H of light a day.
- It sits on a heat mat which bumps up the temperature at the root zone of the pot up by another 5C/~8F. - Unfortunately the heat mat pushes down humidity to around 35%.
- At this point my first hopes are for new root growth before the root system dies, as the current one is really not in the best of conditions.

Any tips or suggestions? I was really debating whether to go for bark vs leca.

[isurus79]

Originally Posted by camille1585

Something is missing in my care but not sure what!

High temps?

[estación seca]

Originally Posted by isurus79

High temps?

Agree. These plants in habitat think 70F is frigid.

[Antogags99]

I was offered this small Gigantea as a gift due to a faulty order in March. I have it in a bark and sphagnum setup and have it in an outer orchid pot with a bit of at the bottom for extra humidity. I live in Portugal and this summer has been particularly hot. After a 3 week holiday I was delighted to see that the protruding leave I saw before I left, has grown so much. I’m experimenting with leca for some of my other phals but seeing that the Gigantea seems to like this setup I’m a bit reluctant to disturb it again… any advice?