This is an exquisite hybrid first produced by Kultana from Thailand. They don’t register in RHS so I don’t know the parentage; yet they failed to get back to me after three emails for the past two years.
So, I follow the Mokara culture I found online. I slowly introduced this to direct sunlight outdoors in the warmer months….in winter this is hanging in the south facing bay window. This is watered every morning, sprayed or misted late afternoon and fed k-lite fertilizer alternated with seaweed mix weekly weakly.
The flowers are bigger this cycle with more vivid colors since the whole spike blasted on me the last blooming cycle due to insects that sucked on its nectar. I make it a point to take my spiking plants indoors but I forgot to do it. The flowers remind me of that red lipstick commercial campaign by Channel on one of those TV ads. Mokaras do not have fragrance but I slightly detect a very light berry scent on this.
This is hanging in an 8 inches basket yet I inherited this hanging bare root two years ago from a grower in California. I lined the bottom with coconut fiber and curled the roots inside making sure it is well anchored with a rubber coated wire then sprinkled medium bark, charcoal, lava rock, sponge rock and tree fern shards around the roots. Two of my Mokaras are in S/H but this is doing well hanging in a basket.
The roots are getting bigger, longer and hard to contain as most of my Mokaras. The new pencil thick roots are coming out in the middle of the stem getting ready to be cut into independent pieces= but I like to grow my Vandaceous plants tall therefore I am not cutting this plant to pieces.
Mokara orchids are inter-generic hybrids connected with Arachnis X Ascocentrum X Vanda which have the greatest number of colors in comparison to other orchids. Mokara is just about the only flower with such broad spectrum of color shades of purple, pink, blue, red, orange, yellow, coral with each and every color possesses its own range that it is commonly called the Smile Orchid, since it is native to Asia where it was initially discovered and cultivated. At the moment, this tropical orchid can almost be seen in virtually all continents even in the extreme cold region such the GH experimental lab in Antarctica. The Sanskrit name Mokara derives from the Hindu philosophy proclaiming that every individual has 3 states of wellbeing which are the causal body, the astral body and the physical body, where Mokara represents the physical body as well as state of form.
Well, if you are looking for the orchid which has multi colors and shapes, easy to maintain, available the whole year round…. Mokara orchids should be in your collection.
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