Inherited many orchids, need advice and identification help! - Page 4 - Orchid Board

Roberta · #31 02-08-2018, 02:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by estación seca

I thought Dendrochilum had enveloping, funnel-shaped bracts on the pseudobulbs?

When they are fresh, yes. But once they dry up and get cleaned up, not so much. Here is Dendrochilum cobbianum (just pulled off the patio), the bracts (and the spikes) are long gone.

WaterWitchin · #32 02-08-2018, 11:03 AM

Why would a humidity tray be expensive? Not being a smartypants. For large setups, I use a boot tray with tall lip. Here's an old picture from one of my albums as an example of size.

Dollythehun · #33 02-08-2018, 11:34 AM

Verrrrrry nice! I use boot that's on the bottom to protect the floor but using a deep on with ribs with a grate would work. Great idea.

malteseproverb · #34 02-08-2018, 10:19 PM

WaterWitchin, I use a boot tray to catch the dripping from my mounted orchids in my normal grow space, but they aren't deep enough for watering in place. Watering in place with the added benefit of extra humidity was what I had in mind. So I went looking online for the kind of humidity tray I've seen in many indoor grow spaces and found that these sell for around $40 on Amazon, which seems overpriced to me, for exactly your reasoning. I'll try to get over to Home Depot soon to find a cheaper alternative but I guess it's really not top priority.

In other news, I hung the T5 lights above the workbench today (below the old fluorescents as I couldn't figure out how those were mounted and didn't feel like dealing with it). This is as temporary as possible. I'll tackle the repotting this weekend, but I'm glad they're getting enough light now.

Now I need to buy an outlet timer and to move some of this crap off the workbench! I think I'm going to stack something on the workbench to get some of the plants closer to the lights, too.

I looked at photos of dendrochilum online and I feel like I could be convinced this is it. The pseudobulb shape seems to be spot on. The leaves are a little different but I think it might be because the leaves are a little old or ragged.

estación seca · #35 02-08-2018, 11:04 PM

Look up old posts by katrina and wintergirl in which they show their setups. They discussed watering trays under the orchids.

Also Dendrochilums are very thirsty orchids, from very wet forests, where they tend to grow in moss on branches or rocks. They are set back quickly if they dry out at all. The best ones I've seen were growing in baskets of wet sphagnum moss and watered almost every day.

Roberta · #36 02-08-2018, 11:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by malteseproverb

I looked at photos of dendrochilum online and I feel like I could be convinced this is it. The pseudobulb shape seems to be spot on. The leaves are a little different but I think it might be because the leaves are a little old or ragged.

Leaves can vary a lot depending on species... I grabbed a Ddc. cobbianum because it was easy to find and reach in the dark. (was mostly focused on the p-bulbs) But yours actually looks a little closer to Ddc. magnum (if so, a really spectacular species) On all of them, the leaves tend to get a bit ratty as they age. If that is what it is, they tend to bloom best when the pot is stuffed with p-bulbs,

WaterWitchin · #37 02-09-2018, 02:17 PM

You can't see it well from the first picture I posted, but each tray has a piece of 1/2" PVC and a hole in the bottom.

Water from top first, as tray fills up water goes down to next tray, then next tray, then on last tray into a hole I drilled in the floor, which sits over a basement drain.

I have a very small sink strainer I can put over the PVC to catch debris, and a small rubber plug if I want to leave water in the tray.

Some don't like this setup, because the orchids get "exposed" to water from the other orchids. I don't care. But if one does, a simple piece of florescent light grating in bottom takes care of that issue.

malteseproverb · #38 02-09-2018, 02:52 PM

Oh my god!! That's amazing! Ingenious. Do you use grow lights in that set up? I can't see them in the farther away shot.

It's really unfortunate that my basement doesn't have a floor drain, or even a sink. But I'm also thinking that it might be advantageous to keep the water around in the grow tray under the plants to help with humidity in this new set up. My basement is not very damp (which is normally a good thing), especially not with the furnace going, and it would be hard to humidify unless I got a grow tent, which is an idea somewhere down the line but not today. At the moment, I have this tiny humidifier that honestly isn't very good and uses up its reservoir in 5 hours. RH is at 30% without it.

I'm going to start the repotting tomorrow. It's almost perverse how much I enjoy repotting so I'm looking forward to it! I also cleaned up the workbench last night. The plants on the upside down basket are around a foot away from the lights. All 6 lights are on. Is this too much light?

Dollythehun · #39 02-09-2018, 03:57 PM

You could use her set up with a 5 gallon jug below to catch the water, then dump it or use it on your houseplants.

I'm curious about the picture, if you don't mind me asking.

WaterWitchin · #40 02-09-2018, 04:32 PM

Your pic doesn't look like there's too much light, MalteseP. No, there's no grow lights on this one. If you scroll up a little ways where I posted first picture re humidity trays, you can see windows behind shelving. It's a sun room and has all windows on three sides.

Room humidity at 30% really isn't that horrible. In the setup in picture above, it fluctuated from 25% to 50%, but stayed mostly around 30ish. Having said that, this was a winter setup. All my orchids are outside around six+ months of the year, and it's VERY humid.

That's an old setup, and I rarely use it anymore. Now most winter in the basement, as it's easier for me. And the dogs don't knock stuff over. Dolly is correct about draining into a bucket or whatever. I had a 50 gallon aquarium on that bottom shelf for awhile, with a small pump to help with humidity. I ran the PVC into a bucket inside the aquarium, and when water in the aquarium got too high, I just dumped the bucket so there wasn't too much weight on the shelf.

Will try to take some pics later today or tomorrow of setup downstairs, which runs on sort of same principal, and has grow lights.

PS If you go to my albums in gallery here, there's a few more pics of that particular setup... I think.