Feeding Potless Vanda

[estación seca]

I think it's isurus79 who uses small plastic baskets to hold fertilizer granules in his pots. I saw some for sale at Louisiana Orchid Connection. I would have to buy new panty hose to use for this and I can't decide which color.

[Roberta]

I do have some of those too... They could be tied up the Vanda stem for similar effect. The issue with bare-root Vandas is that there is not the contact time with medium - I think that is part of their reputation for heavy feeding... If a plant is potted in any medium, some of the fertilizer will stick around and be available for the plant to absorb beyond the instant contact that it gets when watered with fertilizer solution. With a Vanda that isn't "confined" the only fertilizer it gets is what it can absorb at the time of watering, the rest just runs off. So placing the time-release fertilizer where it can give the plant a trickle of nutrients at each watering mimics nature. Of course, if you fertilize each time you water you get the same effect, and is ideal, but that's time-consuming. (I'm lucky to get out with the fertilizer solution every couple of weeks or so and can't give "special treatment" to this plant or that, in with a lot of others).

[K-Sci]

I haven't gone to 1 TBS gallon every 5 weeks, but instead I increased fertilizer to a full teaspoon/gallon 30-10-10 weekly.

The Vanda has initiated a new flower spike for the third time this summer. The second and third began when the previous spike faded.

Not proof that heavier fertilizing, far more than for most orchids, brings more flowers, but it this is pretty good evidence.

As you can see, the newest leaf is no longer shorter than ones below it, so leaf size has also benefitted.

Vanda growers, is flowering multiple time per year normal.common for vanda? This is a Vanda Chulee Blue Classic No. 5.

As for the 1cm wide light stripe at the base of the leaf, there is no way to see where it would start or end.

-Keith