Last year, I bought a Dendrobium lawesii at a show. It bloomed that summer, but it continued to shrivel up, no matter how much I watered it outside. It was a rainy summer, too, so I don't know how it wasn't getting enough moisture. Regardless, it wasn't happy. It was putting out new growth, but the growth was smaller and more spindly. It was getting a nice red from good light exposure, but nothing was burning, so it was happy with the light it was getting.
When I brought it inside for the winter, it still didn't turn around much, so after finishing my vivarium, I placed it, bareroot, in the back of the tank, just to see how it would respond. Slowly, it started putting out new roots, and two tiny keikis. It was going too slowly, though, so I moved it, and wrapped the old canes in sphagnum and mounted it, keikis facing up, on a cork log that sits horizontally in the viv.
They are taking off! They have almost doubled in size since I did that maybe a month ago, and the baby canes are a nice magenta/burgundy color. The leaves are a solid mid-green, and they look like they're beginning to plump up. The viv runs at 90% humidity currently, and hovers around 78 dF. I use a pair of T5 bulbs about 8" from the glass at the top, and the keikis are maybe 18-20" from the lights. I have not yet installed fans for air circulation, but that's next on my agenda. So far, so good!
I also have a Columnia Firebird growing in the substrate, and it looks like it is about to bloom soon. The Bulbophyllum medusae x frostii (which I purchased by mistake) is mounted to the background, and it's putting out new roots and what looks like a new pseudobulb. My Leptotes bicolor (a common viv orchid) is very happy living bareroot on a cork log, too. There are lots of other things in there, but most are Neoregelias, which are well known viv choices. I don't know if the D. lawesii had been tried before, so I figured I would mention how it's doing.
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