SPIKE!!
 

So today, i went to water the orchids. i was on my last one, a noid dendrobium that has been blooming since april. on the newest growth, i found a SPIKE!!!! it was in between the leaves just staring at me, saying :hello :waving

this is the fifth spike on this one! the first one got nocked off by accident :_( and the i sold one of the spikes to my mother, she is a florist, for a wedding.

i dont have a picture of the spike, but will post a pic of the whole plant later :biggrin::biggrin:

Sounds like a happy plant :biggrin:

Hooray! Nice work - can't wait to see the pics.

Congrats on your new spike!

I agree with Rosie- seems that you're doing something right! Can't wait to see pictures!

i think i found its happy spot. ive posted pics of it before.

nice plant and its purple :) some call it blue, but nice plant mister...I just grow leafs and then they fall off...does your dendrobe grow in a coconut?

I can see purple and blue both colors. Why?
Congrads dear.

I think it's probably the lighting/settings of the two different pictures.

I find this a lot when taking pics of flowers. The exact White balance the camera pics on the 'Auto White Balance' setting can vary a LOT giving rise to completely different colour looking flowers when they are actually all taken of the exact same flowers.

the color of the flowers in the first picture, is incorrect. its more like the second pic. the lighting and white balance were off. but its definitely purple! haha the last one is spot ON.

its not in a coconut! haha its in fine bark and [mostly] lava rock. it gets watered everyday.

i do have a keiki from a friend in half a coconut, and its growin well, however the coconut shell is getting squishy :\

good growing I have a den keiki that I was playing with trying to grow it suspended on a wire ...during the super hot spell and our major dry spell even with daily dunking it started losing leaves on one lead so i decided to go to hydrotron with it. After just one week it has put out a new lead....I find they love the hydrotron even when it is simply as medium and not s/h

Beautiful flowers and growing so nice and erect too.

I agree! The upright growth and lovely blooms indicate that it's receiving proper lighting and cultural requirements. Good job!

They like to have a fast wet to dry cycle. I water mine everyday, because it is potted in mainly lava rock. With some bark. After it's done blooming it will need a repot. But I'm scared about that. I've heard you could get a bigger pot and put the old pot into it, and put more media around the old pot. I'm not so sure aboutthat yet. Bu I found it on sbo's site

You should not re-pot your plant until it quits blooming, starts a new growth and produces a root collar on the new growth that is about one inch long. This type of dendrobium likes to be root bound so I would inspect the medium closely to determine if it has broken down. If it appears to be in good condition it would be best left alone.

i wasn't going to repot until after its done blooming. its newest growth started in april, but thats the same growth that has this new spike. the media looks good, but the plant is growing out of the pot. the newest cane is more than half way out of the pot.

If your plant is growing in an in-organic mix, you could just pot it up using a larger pot without disturbing the root ball. If it is in an organic mix that is in good condition I would leave it alone until spring. If growing over the edge bothers you, you could sit it in a larger clay pot for stability and if the roots become too over-grown add a little sphagnum between the two pot walls in which the the new roots can grow.

it is in lava rock, and a tiny bit of fine fir bark. there really isnt very much medium though. i think it might be fine medium wise unil spring, but i dont know about the cane growing out of the pot. but i guess its ok. as you can see in the pictures, its up against the column, and the new growth just so happens to be facing the column and im worried about it getting smushed. but i can just turn it around, if its advisable

okay guys, just an update the flowers lasted until about spetmeber, when the last one finally faded.

since then its started putting out another can AND another spike! WOOHOOO

Man alive! That's a lot of flowers - when you look at the ratio of plant to flowers. And what a color!

Stunning. Really nice work. Good growing.

- J

thanks! this next bloom wont be as spectacular considering there is only one spike (yet ;])

also, there was a third spike on the left hand side that is cut in the pic, but when it was there, it was just a purple mass