Ft. Lauderdale Internatiional Orchid Festival

[Zoren]

I went to the orchid show today and bought 3 orchids (2 sequential paphs in bud) and 1phrag in bloom (phrag Don Wimber) with a bud behind it (see attached). I bought a paph on 1/7/17 almost in flower she has flowered fully (see attached) this is a paph hybrid (snowbird 'Robin' x Sorcerer's Stone 'Enormous'. This is the first non sequential paph I have not had trouble with. I have a paph Grey bought a month ago (bought in bud) that is still not blooming and she is growing a new baby next to her. Maybe someone out there can give me some advice, I've always had trouble with non sequential paphs...Zoren

[estación seca]

Paphs and Phrags need to stay moist and never dry out completely. Some people keep their Phrags wet, standing in a dish of water. You can search Orchid Board threads to see how people grow Phrags, and you will find a lot of people standing them in water.

Being constantly wet to moist leads to the medium breaking down more rapidly than that of orchids that we dry out between watering (like Cattleyas.) Rotting medium will kill the plant. Many people repot Paphs every 1-2 years, and Phrags every year.

Paphs and Phrags need water with very low mineral content, Phrags especially. Because of this, they also can't tolerate high amounts of fertilizer in the water. Most people's tap water has far too many dissolved minerals for slipper orchids. A few people are lucky and can use their tap water.

You can read your water company's water quality report online at their Web site. Look for total dissolved solids (TDS.) The maximum for slippers long-term is around 50 parts per million (ppm.) This includes fertilizer you add, so if your water has 50 ppm minerals, you can't safely add fertilizer to it for these plants. You would have to start with pure water when mixing fertilizer for these plants.

Phoenix, Arizona tap water has 800-1200 ppm TDS. Slippers turn brown at the ends of the leaves and die quickly when people here use tap water on them.

If you have too many TDS in your tap water for these orchids, realize that pitcher-type water filters like Brita don't remove these minerals. Water softeners remove the calcium and magnesium and replace these with sodium, but there are still too many dissolved minerals.

The options for most slipper growers are to collect rain; to buy purified or distilled water; or to get a reverse osmosis (RO) system for your home. A lot of gardeners have a RO system installed under the kitchen sink.

When you do fertilize, realize just a tiny bit raises the TDS a lot. I water my slipper orchids with rain I collect. I use a Michigan State University fertilizer mix formulated for use with pure water. It has numbers 13-3-15 with 8 calcium and 2 magnesium. I can only use 1/8 teaspoon per gallon of rain / 0.625ml of powder per 3.78 liters before I bump up against the 50 ppm ceiling for slippers.

I should add that I am moving all my slippers to semi-hydroponic cultivation (S/H.) This works better for me than any other method. Slippers and Phalaenopsis don't turn a hair and adapt quickly. They grow much better for me than similar plants in standard pots with standard medium.

There is a semi-hydroponics forum here on Orchid Board; you can find it from Forums in the left menu. The originator of the method is Ray, who posts here. He also has detailed information about S/H on his Web site, which you will find in the signature line under his posts.

[vvesto]

I was there as well, I also bought three plants at the show which I'll have to post about tomorrow when I can get some decent light!

[Zoren]

I made a detailed response to your reply, thanking estacion seca and explaining what I discovered after researching about phrags and sequential & non sequential paphs, but I got an OOPS! saying I used a link that doesn't work any more. So all I will
say is that I will be using Purified water and very week fertilizers with a few drops of super thrive for the phrags (I also put the phrag into a dish of water to keep it moist). As for the paphs I will also use Purified water and a just fertilizer accordingly. In my research the grower/enthusiast said he also put 'worm castings on the top of the medium for the phrags', does anyone know why and what 'worm castings' are, are they good for orchids? Thanks again.....Zoren.........

[estación seca]

Each page holds a connection to the server for a certain period of time. If you exceed that the connection is lost. If it takes longer to compose your message than this time it will be lost. I don't know what this time is; it is longer than 5 minutes but seems shorter than 30.

If I know I'm going to be writing a longer message I write it in a text file someplace else. When I'm done I copy what I wrote into the Orchid Board message box and hit Post. That way I don't lose what I wrote.

Worm castings are worm poo. If fairly fresh they have a lot of microorganisms that may be beneficial to plants. I have no experience with them.

[Roberta]

I'd be a bit cautious about straight worm castings, especially on Phrags (which are light feeders) without knowing about the rest of the conditions of the person recommending them - medium, frequency of watering, etc. As for SuperThrive, I used it for awhile, and started getting some crippled flowers - segments that did not separate normally on opening, etc. especially on Catts. I stopped using it and the problem went away. So again, use with caution, very dilute, and maybe once a month at most. If you have Phrags sitting in water (one way to grow them) then be extra-cautious with additives since they won't be washing out of the pot.

[Zoren]

Roberta, thank you for your input, as for worm castings I will have to look up what they are and make a determination as to using or not. I appreciate the heads up about the phrag in dish with water at this time the water has no fertilizer in it, I do understand that if I have the phrag in fertilized standing water I will have to wash out the fertilizer at the end of a 7-10 day period. I'm glad I joined this Orchid Forum, I've been caring (not really Growing) orchids for about (or should I say struggling) for about 6yrs. I have learned a lot in the short time I've been registered, thank to you and other senior members. I'm still having a hard time figuring out haw to use this site, all I have been able to do is (I guess) post and reply, I don't understand any of the other categories in the left column, time will tell....Again thnk you...Zoren....

[Roberta]

I think with Phrags, which don't need much fertilizer at all,most important is good water. I have some (mostly Phrag besseae and hybrids) in a pan of water with an aquarium bubbler to help keep the water oxygenated. I can put RO water in the pan (my tap water, which all the rest the orchids get) is pretty high solids, and the pan with "bubbled" RO water seems to be making some very healthy plants. In the pots I put a 1" (2.5 cm) layer of rock at the bottom,then bark. So that while the bottoms of the pots are in water, the roots have an area that is damp by capillary action, but not soggy, above it. They're sending roots out the holes in the pots into the water, so they seem to really like it.

[estación seca]

Originally Posted by Zoren

...I'm still having a hard time figuring out haw to use this site, all I have been able to do is (I guess) post and reply, I don't understand any of the other categories in the left column....

The site has been undergoing an upgrade, so it hasn't been normal today. If you look to the left near the top of each page you will see the green bar SITE MENU. Under this are different sections of the Orchid Board. (I'm using the desktop version... I haven't tried Tapatalk.) Some of the sections haven't been used for a long time. The Clubs, Social Groups, Chat, Classifieds, Advertise, Book Reviews, Member Articles and Member Blogs are hardly used at all. But they could be, I suppose! I look at the Calendar frequently so I can send birthday wishes to other members.

Most of the material here can be accessed via Forums. When you click on this you will see them. A forum is composed of multiple threads on the same topic. Each thread is composed of individual messages.

Each forum has sticky threads at the top that people have found so useful, they want to make them easy to find. Then follow the threads in the forum, sorted from newest posted at the top to oldest at the end of the page listing. If you post a message to the last thread in a forum, it moves to the top of the listing.

In the top menu you can access your own profile (User CP), look at an alphabetical listing of current members (Members), look at the posts new since you last visited (Posts), Search (don't overlook Advanced Search when you click here), and look at today's posts (among other things; Quick Links.)

If you click now on Forums in the SITE MENU, the first forum is "About this board." You might find it useful to read through the sticky threads there.