Sedirea japonica

[camille1585]

Got this plant with 2 spikes from my favorite ebayer a few weeks ago, and it's now blooming Love this orchid and it has a faint sweet lemon scent. For some reason the blooms are already fading, even though they opened only about a week ago. Don't know what's going on, several orchids have done that lately.

[Call_Me_Bob]

nice! i excpected it to be yellow! i like this better though. i cant wait for the buds on mine to open. how big is your plant?

[camille1585]

It's quite a small plant, the longest leaf is a bit over 3in, and the spikes are about 7in long. Me too, I imagined that the blooms would be a bit more yellow (but not yellow-yellow). I wonder if they didn't turn out more greenish since the plant was shipped in bud and I also kept the plant off the sunny windowsill (more temp swings there) to limit the chance of bud blast. Might not have had enough light to fully develop the color.

[Call_Me_Bob]

Interesting. The largest leaf on mine is just over 2" with one spike that is 3 1/2" with 6 buds. But the spike is still growing and more buds are coming.

I really like the color of yours. I hope mine turns out half as nice.

I'm sorry I can't help with the buds fading.


You can call me Bob

"have no fear, help is here!"

[Brotherly Monkey]

I heard over ripe bananas can cause bud blast

[ezil]

My 1st Sedirea bloomed itself to death, throwing out one spike after the other. The flowers never had any scent and were about the same color as yours. I have since acquired 2 new ones, one in spike and one still too small to develop one. It looks like the flowers will be light again. It was quite cold and grey here in Alberta this winter and I bought both plants at our show in February. Could it be that the first blooming is light and, as the plant gets older, the colors deepen?
Does anybody know?
L

[quiltergal]

Mine surprised me this year with two spikes. Usually it only throws out one. Mine also has more barring than yours Camille. I wonder if there are different variations?

[camille1585]

Ezil - there is a trick to keep it from blooming itself to death: give it the conditions it gets in the wild. Winters in its habitat are cold (in the 40s). They don't need it to bloom, but by giving them their 'natural' dormancy period you give the plant a break from spiking, giving it some time to re-energize. Otherwise I read that Sedirea tend to bloom themselves to death, with an average life expectancy of only 3-4 years.

Terri, do you have a pic of yours? I'm curious to see what you mean about the barring!


On a side note, I did find why one spike already wilted: the base of the spike (and leaf crotch it's coming from) are rotting. So I cut off the spike, scraped the rotting tissue and treated with H2O2.

[RJSquirrel]

now I'm jealous! mine is only visible in 10x magnification..the whole plant is less than 1 inch..I got a small one...pretty flowers..I love small flowers too

[quiltergal]

Here's a picture of mine I took today. You can see the overall color is lighter, and the barring is heavier and on some flowers goes up into the dorsal sepal. It could be due to differences in light. I grow mine pretty bright, just behind the Catts.