my ailing cymbidium

[Shadeflower]

So the new year is approaching and I am looking forward to buying my first pleiones in 2022!
You rarely see pleiones and I think a big part of that is that they only get sold at one time a year so fingers crossed in a weeks time the ones I have on my wishlist are available and I get myself a pleione forrestii. Yes yes apparently the hardest of the lot but I'll get some easier ones too.

But that is not what this post is about, this post is about my latest cymbidium "seedling" I got .... can't even remember exactly, lets say I've had it one year.

So I know it's quite small and through trial and error I have discovered some can handle the same conditions the care guides state but unfortunately through too much error I have also discovered some seedlings can't.

So this seedling went into winter, temps got cold. It got attacked by thrips and bam the latest growth rotted away. I was gutted. You can see the old attempted growth in the background. Lesson learnt I moved it to my australian growing dendrobiums where it doesn't get as cold and a couple months later the next growth developed but it came out rather black looking and is growing very very slowly. It should be ok now fingers crossed but still looks brown. I don't think it would have survived losing another growth and it's not out of the woods yet so I'm encouraging it to make a new years resolution to grow strong.