Angraecum eburneum

[khill]

That is a large plant! Mine is quite a bit smaller, but I do have room on my lanai. I will be keeping it outside year round--I didn't think about a landscape plant though.....hmmmm.....

I'm glad it's easy to grow. What kind of light are you growing in?

[Baby Girl]

shaZAM! That's a good lookin plant. Very nice display.

[smweaver]

This past summer (which is the first summer that I've had it in my care), the plant grew on the east side of my house, where it received direct sun between 7:00 A.M. and noon. It received very bright indirect light throughout the remainder of the day after the sun passed to the south side of the house. I did, however, gradually expose it to those high light conditions. To begin with, it was not receiving five hours of direct morning sun. After maybe three to four weeks of giving it longer exposure to the direct light, it was fine without having to be protected from the eastern exposure. Now that it's inside the house, I have it sitting in front of a large south-facing window. I watered and fertilized it heavily during the spring and summer, and the plant never went completely dry between waterings. Our humidity during the growing season is also pretty high (usually runs between 80 and 90 percent), which probably helped. I've been letting it dry out more now that it's inside. But until the flowers die, I'm not letting it stay dry for any length of time. I still need to do a lot of research on this species, but I've ready somewhere (and someone here who's more familiar with eburneum can correct me if I'm mistaken) that there's never really a true dry season in the lowland areas of Madagascar where it's from. So I'm going to try and keep it steadily growing throughout the year instead of letting it rest like I do with most of my Central and Souther American species. I've read that the larger Angraecums don't like to be repotted. But this plant didn't seem set back by the treatment it received last spring. Lots of new root growth commenced shortly after it was detached from the mother plant, and it's now starting to send out another flush of new roots. It also started to produce two babies of its own over the summer. I still think that, judging by how easy it is to grow and bloom, that this species must be something of a weed in Madagascar--but a very choice weed.

[Pinkcat]

That baby is huge! I hope mine will grow some day...What medium do you have this planted in?

[Rosim_in_BR]

Amazing display you have there, Steve! Real beauty! A friend of mine has it and I am trying to trade a piece. Unsuccessfully, BTW. But, I am not giving up!

[smweaver]

Pinkcat, it's growing in a mixture of coconut husk chips (large--or coarse--grade, and soaked in RO water overnight for three nights in a row prior to use--and the water was changed nightly), and large pieces of crushed brick (standard-sized bag found in the garden center at Lowe's).

Mauro, does your friend's plant have baby plants growing around its main stem? The larger plants readily form colonies as they reach maturity. Ask your friend to detach one for you. The babies grow fairly fast and don't have to reach a really big size to flower.

[Angurek]

How long did it take for your eburneum to reach that size, Weaver?

I might give this one a try if I come across it. I kinda have a bad taste for Angraecums after my incident, but it looks like it's worth a try.

[smweaver]

Angurek, I imagine that it took many years for my plant to get this size. As indicated in my initial post, I got it last spring when it was cut from a huge mother plant. The mother plant was the size of an adult male human (and that's not an exaggeration), which is the only way that my plant, by comparison, could ever be considered a "baby." I don't think, however, that they have to get that big before they flower. You should try sesquipedale again. That species is especially noteworthy for its ability to flower when quite young.

Steve

[Tindomul]

Wow, impressive!! The scent must be impressive as well. Have any moths available?
When you say, easy grower, exactly what do you mean by that?

[smweaver]

I would LOVE to see one of those massive hawk moths in action. I saw one of them pollinating an Ang. sesquipedale on some show on the Discovery Channel last summer. Very impressive tongue!

By easy, I mean that the species doesn't seem to be finicky in its needs. I basically sat it outdoors on the bright eastern side of my house last spring, watered it weekly, and gave it a lot of fertilizer (I have to admit that I didn't use the old standard weakly-weekly feeding method with this plant; it got heavy doses of fertilizer, much like what my cymbidiums received). It didn't have any bugs that were particularly attracted to it, and (contrary to common wisdom regarding the larger angraecums) it didn't respond badly to being repotted (and even though I tried to be careful, it's not an easy thing to delicately manipulate an ungainly plant that weighs a good twenty-five pounds without causing at least a little root damage). In fact, it started to put out lots of new roots shortly after being repotted. So--in my long-winded way--that's how I define "easy" in this particular case.