my cat. saccatum lita questions...

[kindrag23]

So mine has a baby growth on it. The mother bulb looks to possibly have a growth on it. And the shoot w leaves looks like it may be wanting to sleep now...the lower leaf has yellowed...what is going on w it. I make sure the water when water only touches the lip of the pot NEVER the base of the bulb but roots are good.... am I missing something here?


Correction: newest growth has 2 growths and some odd bump. Possibly a spike or root. I am not sure.

[kindrag23]

Also not near a open draft. Has medium/high humidity. Quite warm room...in moss not to wet not to dry. Packing peanuts added for air flow. Lava rock on the bottom and small pieces through out for stability and to prevent impaction....

---------- Post added at 09:14 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:40 PM ----------

Bump

[TOMMYMIAMI]

I would say yellow leave is the beginning of the dormancy? And possibility of spike hopefully:-)

[katrina]

In the last pic...your growth does not appear to be mature enough to be heading into dormancy. Could be I'm not seeing enough of it but that's what I'm seeing.

If I am seeing an immature growth then continue watering until the plant tells you it's time to reduce/stop watering. When these guys begin to go dormant...all the leaves will begin to lose color and eventually turn yellow. Think leaves on a tree in the fall...they start to change color and begin to dry out a bit...that's when you reduce your watering. Many will start to drop their lowest leaves but some will start to brown at the tips of the leaves and some will lose color in streaks throughout the entire leaf...these are all signs of your plant getting ready to go to sleep.

Sometimes when a plant is maturing it will lose the bottom set of leaves but it's just a hardening of the pbulb/growth and it's doesn't mean the plant is going dormant. Those lower leaves are wrapping the growth and that part will harden and become thicker as the growth matures. From what I can see...I would say this is what your plant is doing.

As for a schedule...there is no ONE schedule w/Ctsm. You can try to train them into a schedule...such as forcing dormancy but they aren't all going to do the same thing at the same time. I have some that have already dropped their leaves and some that are making new growths already...and a bunch in the middle of both of those extremes. Some go dormant for a few months...some have a very short dormancy of only a couple/few weeks. There is no one size fits all. I let the plant tell me what it wants by watching it.

BTW - if your new plant came from the Southern hemisphere then it's running on a different seasonal time clock so it might take it a year or more to acclimate to the North Summer/Winter cycles. I have ordered them up from S America in the Summer and they have come to me dormant...now that's tricky...making sure they don't get watered in the Summer.

[kindrag23]

Right right. Okay that was another (?) Was it perhaps hardening off.

[isurus79]

As usual, Katrina's advice is spot on.