Cymbidium culture in a tropical area: Moving Cymbidium Swan Lake 'Bayfront Park' to a bigger pot

         For many years I have admired the flowers of the Cymbidium hybrids derived from cool growing species.  However I never grew them because my local climatic conditions don’t provide the low temperatures needed to initiate blooming in these hybrids.  However in recent years a number of “warm tolerant” hybrids have appeared that hold the promise that they might bloom under my conditions.  

          A few years ago I decided to experiment and see how one of these “warm tolerant” Cymbidium would fare in my garden.  Over the years I have seen friends buy big standard Cymbidium, which were large plants with impressive flowers, and then witnessed the slow deterioration of the plants.  I wondered, whether it was due to the local temperatures of maybe that my friends didn’t cultivate the plants properly.

So I brought a small seedling of Cymbidium Swan Lake 'Bayfront Park' from Carter and Holmes.  I potted the plant in a standard six inch pot, in bark with a one inch deep layer of Styrofoam chips at the bottom of the pot to ensure proper aeration and drainage.  The plant grew slowly but uneventfully with the same care I give all my other orchids except that for this plant I put a small amount of horse manure over the media at the start of the rainy season.

After a year had gone by I took the plant out of the pot to see how the roots were doing.  I was quite pleased to note that the orchid had developed a good root system.  In fact it almost looked out of proportion with the amount of leaves the plant had.  The plant had completely filled the pot with its roots.  Even the part of the Styrofoam chips was filled.

I moved the plant to a taller six inch pot but I worried that the roots would rot in a pot of this shape.  So I cut openings on the side of the pot at regular intervals (see photo).  This might seem as overkill but I have good reasons to do this.  In my locality, which is at a 1,000 feet of elevation on the mountainous interior of the island of Puerto Rico, in the summer, it rains every day.  And when it rains, it is not a gently falling drizzle but a fierce downpour that swamps everything.   As a result the media inside the pots can stay sopping wet, not for days or weeks but for months on end.   I have learned, from bitter experience that any plant whose pot lack excellent drainage and aeration will lose its roots to rot over the summer season.

The plant has been growing well and by early this year the new growths were at the edge of the pot.  I decided to repot the plant to give more space to the new growths to develop.  When I took the plant out of the pot I found that the roots were in perfect shape and filled the pot completely.  I didn’t find even a single spot of root rot.  I left the root ball in a single piece and moved it to a larger pot.  Hopefully this will help the plant produce even larger pseudobulbs in this year and maybe then it will bloom.

Fiesta de las Mascaras de Moca diciembre 30, 2012.

  La tradición de la fiesta de las Mascaras en el área de Moca y San Sebastian sigue viva y alegrando a las personas de estos pueblos.  El desfile de esta fiesta es mas pequeño que el de Hatillo.  Los participantes se visten de una forma totalmente distinta a los de Hatillo.  El énfasis en este desfile es la música y el baile.  Las "bromas" que caracterizan el desfile de Hatillo estan totalmente ausentes, también las carrozas son distintas, siendo en su mayoría plataformas para los músicos.  Los participantes bailan mientras desfilan, lo que hace que el desfile a veces se mueva a un ritmo glacial.   Generalmente la carroza va al frente del grupo, seguida por un grupo de mujeres o niñas que bailan de forma sincronizada.  Luego vienen los hombres vestidos de la usanza tradicional del desfile.  Los niñitos mas pequeños van al frente, bailando con admirable dedicacion, luego estan los adultos y los adolescentes   Los varones bailan en grupo, en pareja, solos y con las mujeres del publico que se les unen para bailar con ellos brevemente.  Aunque los trajes de los varones superficialmente parecen todos ser iguales, en realidad no hay dos que sean idénticos. También desfilaron un numero de vehículos que desafían una fácil clasificación, uno de ellos me daba la impresión de ser Santa Claus sirviendole de chófer a un gorila enano con gafas, ustedes me explican eso.  Disfrute mucho de esta actividad.  Sin embargo me sorprendió que por horas después de haber comenzado el desfile, aun se permitía el trafico en el carril del lado.

Ponthieva ventricosa, first flower of the season.

  

This is the first flower of the winter season of the plants of  a patch of Ponthieva ventricosa plants I am monitoring in the wild.  The patch was being overshadowed by ferns.  I cleared away a few of the ferns so that the plants would get more sunshine, as a result the patch became healthier amd this year will produce its best blooming since I have been watching it.

Bulbophyllum lepidum

This is the hardiest of all my Bulbophyllum.  I have had it for many years and it has survived both overwatering and utter neglect.   It helps that the local climatic conditions in the mountains where I live are favorable for its growth, but it also has survived well in the coast where it is much hotter and drier.   This plant blooms from me between October and December. It produces flowers arranged in a half daisy pattern.  The inflorescence is wiry and it is easy to miss until it starts developing the flowers.  A single pseudobulb can produce several inflorescences if it is healthy and large.  This is one well behaved plant which will produce growths that closely follow the contours of its post.  I don’t culture this one on pots because it keeps outgrowing them in a relatively short time.  I had two plants, one in a fern post and another growing in the outside of a wire basked shaped like a cylinder.  Both have done very well, unfortunately the fern post eventually rotted away and the plants had to be transplanted elsewhere.  The plants were in the fern post for eight years and covered it completely.  The wire basket is full of bark, however as the bark decays it gets washed away during watering.  To replace the decayed bark I add fresh pieces through the top opening of the basket.  This sometimes attracts small flies and it is quite amusing to see them wall around on top of the flower and occasionally trip on the lip.  I have seen flies with pollinia of this species on the back and from time to time a seed capsule starts to develop.

Media:  It seems indifferent to the type of media as long as it gets watered and fertilized according to its needs.  I have had it in tree fern and bark.

Potting:  I cultivate them in a fern post and in a wire basket.  I initially had it in small pots proportionate to the size of the plant but it kept outgrowing them in a relatively short time.   Fern post eventually decay, but they can accommodate the growth of the plants for many more years than a pot.

Watering:   During the summer this plant gets rain every single day in the afternoon, the media stays constantly wet for months.  During the dry season, if it is not growing it gets a soaking once a week or a bit more frequently if the bulbs start to become furrowed.  Although this species, likes many other Bulbophyllum, likes frequent watering, this plant has shown itself to be hardier than the others in regard to tolerance to less than ideal watering schedules and has survived neglect in the coastal lowlands.  However the effect of neglect is that you get small pseudobulbs that bloom rarely if at all.

Humidity: The local weather provides the right amount of humidity for this plant most of the year.  Humidity locally fluctuates between 70% and 90% during the day.  At the height of the dry season humidity might go down to 50% for a few hours a day but climbs over 70% at night.  At the height of the wet season it can stay close to 100% during the night.  During its growing season the higher the environmental humidity the better, after it finishes its growing phase it can tolerate less humid conditions with no ill effects such as leaf loss.

Fertilizing: A fertilizer with high nitrogen content is used two times a week when this plant is producing new growths.  I stop fertilizing when the new growths achieve mature size.  I don’t’ fertilize if the plant is not producing either new growths or roots.

Light: It gets bright light, it is with my Cattleya, it gets full sun early in the morning and the rest of the day it is under the shade of trees.  It is not in deep shade.  This plant blooms better with high light but can still bloom quite satisfactorily with the level of light given Phalaenopsis.

Temperature: From 95 F high day to 75 F at night during the summer, 80F to 60F during the night in winter.

Care: Under my conditions, this plant thrives with routine care.

Pests:  So far no insect pests have bothered this plant.  But this plant has lost leaves and pseudobulbs from rot during the rainy season when they became accidentally damaged.