Cattleya tenebrosa
 

For those of you who have been following me, you know I've been on the lookout for a fine Cattleya tenebrosa. There's a lot of crappy tenebrosas out there. The flowers are small, the colors are muddy, the form is poor, and the petals too narrow. I didn't want just any tenebrosa. I wanted one that came from two fine, awarded parents, and I finally found one at Marlow's (and I Just love Marlow). I think we've all heard of 'Rainforest' FCC/AOS, but the other parent, 'Taylor's' is also an awarded clone (AM). The plant is small, but it's very healthy, and I like buying them small and watching them grow. I don't know how big tenebrosa typically gets, so I have no idea how far away from blooming this one is, but I'm excited about it, and just wanted to share. I almost hesitated to order it because I've bought several new one lately, but I changed my mind quickly, which was lucky, because he said this was the last one.

I got one approx. that same size about 3 years ago and it still didn't bloom.
I think your plant is too young to bloom. Give it, maybe, 3 or 4 more years (that's my oppinion:)).

JS - that was excellent in how you acquired that particular plant. An AM awarded orchid is right up there with FCC any day I reckon. As long as the shape and colour is what you are looking for, then that's the main thing. I'm confident that you're going to get exactly that - the fantastic colour and shape.

rbarata mentioned that your acquired plant might not yet be of a flowering size. Not sure - it could take maybe a little bit more, but your plant is definitely getting there - in terms of size! rbarata is possibly right.

On the other hand, I (or we) have certainly seen interesting things with some orchids, where if the conditions are good --- ie. growing conditions --- an orchid can abruptly grow incredibly strongly, and get flowers before we know it!

Oh, I know tenebrosa can get big, and mine is nowhere flowering size. 3 years or so is about what I was expecting when I bought it. Maybe even longer since I can't provided the ideal conditions you can get in a greenhouse. But it has excellent parents, which is exactly what I was hoping to find, and i know it will be worth the wait.

JS - check out the odd thing currently occurring on the orchidboard system ... if you go to this link http://www.orchidboard.com/community/, you'll see that the system is still registering as rbarata was the last one posted in this thread. Some kind of sync problem.

One thing I've found as very important among all the requirements is humidity and watering. My HR ranges between 30 and 40% naturally (between late spring and autumn dips into 15 to 20%).
Now I am watering it every 4 days max. and try to mantain HR between 40 and 50% min.).
This Catt seems to like more water than the usual Catt culture.

rbarata WAS the last poster to this thread, has a post after yours.

Thanks for the tip about the water. I didn't know that. My humidity is usually in the 30s in the winter when they are inside, and then in the spring through autumn when they're outside, the humidity is quite high.

If the HR is low new leaves have a hard time to unfold and the plant don't grow as much as it should.

Yes, which is why I expect my plant to take somewhat longer to reach blooming size than it would have if it were in a greenhouse.