Vanda care while out of town
In maybe my most impulsive purchase, I bought a Vanda seedling in mid March. I have it hanging bare root in an open east facing window. I’ve been soaking it nightly for 2-3 hours and for half an hour or so most mornings and fertilizing it once a week. It had no growing root tips when I bought it, but now most of its roots are actively growing.
I imagine it’s getting high 70s to low 80s during the day and low 60s to high 50s at night. It was listed as KT 7288 which is apparently a cross between V. Mad. Chusri Narattagsia 4n and V. coerulea. I got it because it was the only purple seedling sized plant available but it looks like V. coerulea is fairly cold tolerant; nights are still dipping into the mid 40s here so I’m thinking it’s still better kept indoors.
I’ll be out of town for 7 days or so. Of the options available, I can either soak it overnight and leave it dry or position it so that the lower roots will be in water. I did leave it all day once with just the end of the longest root in water and this seemed to lead to some black spotting on that root. It would be nice if I could avoid putting the roots back into dormancy. What is the best course of action under these conditions?
|