Introducing myself and my Vanda :)

[Daemos]

Greetings to you all. My real name is Dimitri but everyone calls me Daemos so feel free to do so.

I am growing cactusses for more then a decade now but lately my interrest has shifted to growing vanda's as well. My friend had got me started by buying one in store and so I ordered mine about two months ago over the mail. If I have to believe the order company it is a vanda "blue magic" (the most common one available in the Netherlands known as the sansai blue). Unfortunatly the flower stem was broken during transport So I am still sitting here without any flowers. The vanda arrived here in terrible shape, plants was healthy but filled up to the neck with mites, beatles, catterpillars and also the very annoying and dangerous mealybugs. Fortunatly for me I am experienced with these pestlings and I "destroyed" them all by using deltamethrin in combination with Imidacloprid and permethrine systemic poison (moehahahah). The plant is now doing excellent but has very tiny black spots on the leafs (even the new one). I hope its not ringspot or something viral like that??!!
New roots have started to grow but the plant did drop the smallest lowest leaves (guess thats ok??)

It all started as an experiment (dangerously expensive one ) but I felt in love with this plant. The way the leaves grow, the roots and the flowering is just too amazing! I am planning on more vanda's but I first want to see if this one will work out (I never had one plant fail on me).

My conditions are really crappy, but I thought that if i can make cactusses bloom every year so can this vanda. The difference in climate is very large though hummidity 40-70% depending on the wind direction. Temperatures between september and march 12-16 C, March-August 25-35 C. Sunlight is even more horrid. september-februar maybe 12 hours of weak light. In summer between 6:00 and 11:00 very strong and direct light from then on good medium light till 22:00. Thats more of a desert climate if you ask me but I just got to try and make this work (could you imagine, tropical plants blooming amongst desert plants).
I water the vanda once a week by submerging the roots in a bucket filled with fertilized water. And every morning I spray the roots with demi-water. So far so good. It is still alive and growing and I am waiting for the sun and heat to come. I chose for sansai blue for the reason that it contains an awfull lot of v. coerullea and I know they can withstand extreme low temp.
The plan is now to wait for the sun to pop out in march and keep feeding the plant and moisting its roots by means of spraying. When the temp. goes nuts I will spray even more and water more and protect it from the sun in the morning. Can it take direct morning sunlight??

Too bad the flowerstem has been broken. Here comes a very important question form my side. Is this a real vanda "blue magic"?? The leafs look alot like princess mikassa to me. I love huge flowers (all cacti i own flower huge ) and the mikassa is just a little bit too small for my taste . I've been watching google foto's for days now and still can't make up my mind about which one I received. The orchid company I made the order only had blue magic and mikassa so it has to be one of the two. Anyone has pictures of a full plant (blue magic, sansai blue).

So far so good and I keep my fingers crossed. The winter is killing me and my plants. It is time the sun starts appearing.

O yeah almost forgot. Here are some foto's. Forgive me the crappy quality. Ill make some better foto's when I get my good camera back and when the sun starts coming out from behind those thick grey clouds!

Pictures from left to right: day after receival, month later, moved into a brighter spot.

[shams]

Blue Magic IS a vanda... .and one I want very badly!!!

Though... I have a feeling, judging from your pics, that it might be a bigger plant than Princess Mikasa (which I have )Vanda's do like the like, and humid conditions. I doubt they will object to overspraying once in a while. Morning light is not as harsh as afternoon light, so it's probably fine in direct morning light, but if you want to be safe, hang a sheer curtain in the window. I bought a humidifier to keep my kitchen nicer for my orchids, particularly the vandas.

I hope this helps Daemos Welcome to the OB and keep us posted on your progress. We are always happy to help

[Daemos]

Thanks, you guys are super!! its hard to find good forums with helpfull people these days. Now I can finally talk about vanda's with somebody

Temperature here is dropping like hell right now The worst problem is that all the windows in the house are single glass brrrr. This plant has seen 10 C for 1,5 month so ive proven its cold resistance.

Ill post new pics tomorrow (found my camera jeeeej) and maybe a closeup of the rootgrowt.

[Ross]

Welcome to the board Daemos!

I don't grow Vandas because of very dismal light here (sounds like what you have ) But I have a couple suggestions. Can you get compact florescent lights where you live? Something like these 105 Watt Compact Fluorescent If so, you can get a couple very powerful ones and let them run for 12 hours near your plant. It doesn't even need to be near a window if you do this.

As for the bugs, many times on orchids of all types there will be left-over symptoms from the bugs. I also grow cacti and they are much less foregiving of bugs then orchids. Once a cactus gets mites, it's pretty much done. I've sprayed, I've done everything and all I get is scabby growth that looks terrible. With all the humidity from my orchids, though, the last of my cacti are doing really well as evidenced with this photo

This guy bloomed steadily on the main growth plus the pups all summer into the fall - has recently stopped blooming.

I hope you enjoy your visits here in this board. We are generally a friendly bunch and truly international. There are active members from all over the European Union as well as North America, South America, and the far east. Have fun here!

[Daemos]

Good idea Ross. Ill have to look around. These bulbs don't seem to be too expensive. If nothing happens in the summer Ill give it a shot. Do these bulbs give enough UV light? you have them? if so did they work. How many for one plant? While writing I get more and more interrested I can propably also use this trick on my cacti when the weather goes wrong hmmmm.

As for the bugs. Try Deltamethrin. Spray three times a day and soak the whole plant till the stuff starts dripping for at least 3 days and remove every bug by hand (what I didn't do to get rid of them ) then use 3x the described dosage of imidacloprid in the water you give to them. Keep that up for at least a month. Start decreasing the dosage slowly. The flowers will malform and the plants will turn a bit yellow but after that they color back normal and start growing as if nothing happend and offcourse all the bugs are history! Also do not forget to wash of the remaining salt residue of the plants with demi-water. Noone agrees on this I know but the choice became simple to me when my plants started dying from the bugs.

According to my neighbour this vanda is imported from Asia. I believe him, real big bad spiders came out that do not live in the Netherlands for sure!

[Ross]

Originally Posted by Daemos

Good idea Ross. Ill have to look around. These bulbs don't seem to be too expensive. If nothing happens in the summer Ill give it a shot. Do these bulbs give enough UV light? you have them?

Yes I do. They work just fine. Here is my "upstairs" setup (I also run a wardian case under straight t5's "downstairs")

I have 3 bulbs here. One 105 watt in front and 2 55 watt bulbs at back of picture. I have lots of high light orchids as well as low light orchids. I think the high light guys just survive, but if you set a large wattage bulb close to your plant you should get close to 7000 lumens. Be sure to check for "full spectrum" to get the UV and other spectrums you need.

[Daemos]

WOW!! That will certainly do the trick. Gonna head out today and see where I can find one of these. I also made some pictures in better quality.

btw What are the times you light your plants? I think Ill set a timer on the lamp to make sure it goes out at night. I need the darkness too at night.

I now made a picture of the full plant and the new root it is growing on one side. Ill have to wait for flowers, but theyll come

I wish I had a lot more space but that one single window is the only one I have. It is fortunatly very very stashable. All I need right now is some light

[Grandma M]

I just love the way the vanda roots grow. I'm so facinated by them.

I have my light on over my vandas for 12 hours a day.

[Daemos]

Those particular light bulbs are hard to get here. I have stopped searching the web as they associate these bulbs with cannabis growth which is illegal. I don't want to get in trouble for something I didn't do. The stores that do have them are creepy underground shops I rather don't stick my head in.
Any chance that 1000bulbs.com do international shipments??

And I just found out that these particular light types are illegal here :S The only way to get them is by import. I guess Ill have to stick with the amount of sunlight Ive been given.

[Daemos]

Good news from my part. Started asking around and found out that the lightbulb itself is not illegal to own. It is just illegal to sell it to consumers (they try to prevent cannabis growth). Right across the border they sell these these lights so I ordered a 120 Watt compact fluorescent growlamp (65 euro's !!! :O).

The vanda though starts looking more fresh green since I moved it to a lighter part of the window. We are having a full week of good weather which must be the reason why there is just enough light right now. I need artificial light anyway (winter preparement) and I can use the light on my other plants as well. My window is north-east thus explaining the poor light.

Now lets wait for that lamp and see what it will do for me. Ill keep my fingers crossed that it will make my vanda spike thanx again for the tip Ross

Ohw btw Grandma M: Between which times do you light your vanda's. I am planning from 9-21 but I am not sure how it can be done best.