What's with these odd growths on my D. kingianum??

[cbuchman]

Originally Posted by WhiteRabbit

All the new growth on my kingi starts off looking purplish (new canes, keikis, spikes).

These can actually take a pretty fair amount of light. Mine gets sun all morning. But you probably should watch for burn in afternoon light during very hot weather.

Same for me. New growths are very red and then the leaves open to a more greenish color but still with some red. I also give it as much light as it can take without burning. My purple/pink species can take a bit more light than my whitish hybrid (Hanna Smile 'Early Bird'), BTW.

[rosemadder]

I just realized, the next time this thing blooms, it'll likely have almost 3x as many spikes as it did before. Awesome.

I guess it's doing okay in the S/H setup. I figured, it's a lithophytye, so a pot of hydroton is sorta like a little pile of rocks, right?

With the cascading effect though, seems to me pretty soon most of the roots on the whole plant won't be anywhere near a pot. Do you kinda have to start treating it like it's mounted at that point?

[cbuchman]

The huge one I saw was in a basket which you couldn't even see! The owner said, he was sure all the media was gone and it was just living in the basket. Hadn't been repotted in many years. So I guess you do have to treat it like a mount when it gets too big. What a problem to have

[WhiteRabbit]

The parent plant canes will still grow into the media ...

I just pot into a bigger pot when it fills the current one.