Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Brassia Edvah Loo 'Nishida' specimen plant



All the inflorescences would orient in the direction of the strongest ligh, this caused some to overlap which caused the flowers to become crowded due to their large size.


This orchid produces huge flowers well over one foot tall.  The inflorescences are massive and the fragrance is delightful and powerful.  I used to have this huge specimen which produced amazing displays of flowers when it bloomed.  When it got so large it was difficult to move I decided to divide it.   I cut it in seven pieces and to my horror six of the pieces started dying from rot.  Only a tiny piece, that I had left out and had not potted because it had few roots, survived.  After four years of precarious growth that piece bloomed for the first time this July.  Hopefully it will grow well enough to reclaim its past glory.
Previous to that awful loss of plants, this orchid had proved to be easy to culture, a vigorous grower and a reliable bloomer.  It is not clear why the pieces got rot.   This orchid used to be very common, however it has been some years since I have seen plants of this hybrid shown anywhere.  It would be interesting to know if others have had the same experience I had with this orchid.  I remember seeing some pretty impressive plants shown in orchid group meetings.

5 comments:

ScottyP. said...

I have never had luck growing Brassias. I want a Brassia longessima really bad and I've tried a few times but they never do well and just die out.

Unknown said...

Um show de planta, super sadia, florada maravilhosa, obrigado por compartilhar
abraços

susan said...

I understand that Brassias hate to have their roots disturbed . I had success with a large one in a slatted basket. As it grew, I placed the whole plant, basket and all, into a larger basket. It did well for years....until my greenhouse blew down.

I enjoy reading your creative orchid growing tales. Keep it up!
Susan

Silvia said...

I live in France and I bought one of these plants 10 days ago. On arriving home the flowers begun to become red and falled.
I think that the cause was the fact of moving it to a different place.
Now, I have moved it to a place with more light and, for the moment, flowers stopped to fall.
It's a wonderful plant.

Mike said...

I purchased a plant in 2014, has been a wonderful flowering plant for me. I removed it from the pot today, rot was commencing in some areas , but bulk of plant ok. I am attending our orchid society "Christmas in Feb" function this afternoon and taking a large piece for the raffle.