Angelfish, Peruvian "altum", two weeks after they arrived.

The baby angelfish were quite timid for the first week after they arrived.  But now they have lost all their wariness and come out quickly to see if I am going to feed them.  I feed them blood worms and rat tail maggots.  I give them a little flake food in the morning, when they are very hungry, otherwise they would not eat it.  I have offered them tiny pieces of frozen shrimp but they have scorned it.  Every week I do a 50% water change.  They have learned to take bloodworms from the net.  I feed them four times a day.  A little bit of flake food in the morning, an hour later bloodworms and insect larvae.  Then two more feedings in the afternoon of bloodworms or other insect larvae.  I give them no more than what they can eat in a few minutes.  They are gluttonous and in a very short time they fill their bellies to the bursting point.

Bulbophyllum facetum Garay 1997

 This is the first blooming of this philippine endemic in my collection.  Compared with other members of the sestochilus section of Bulbophyllum that I grow, this one is a slow and deliberate grower that ocassionally loses growths due to rot, a rare thing among my Bulbophyllum.  The flower came out of the side of the pseudobulb and initially I thought a new pseudobulb was going to develop.

Dendrobium formosum Roxb. var giganteum Roxburg ex Lindley 1832, in my experience this one really hates being put in a pot

This species has  nice flowers reminiscent of a white Cattleya.  It can produce foot long canes that will bear short inflorescences that with several relatively large white flowers.  In my experience it will only grow well if it is mounted in a plaque, all my potted plants either languished producing poor growth or died.  Plants mounted in tree fern plaques grew larger and thrived for a years but eventually deteriorated as the tree fern plaque decayed and started retaining too much water.  So my advice is to mount these orchids in a plaque and be watchful for poor growth, that will be a warning sign that the mount needs to be replaced.

Dendrobium Love Memory 'Fizz'

This Dendrobium nobile hybrid grew very well in the coastal lowlands of Puerto Rico.   Unfortuantely when the blooming season arrived it was the only adult nobile hybrid not to produce flowers.  Because it appeared that it would not bloom in the coast I took it to the mountains, to an elevation of 1000 feet over sea level.  Because the night temperatures are lower in the mountains than it the coast it appears this provided the needed stimulus to make the plant bloom and in a few weeks flower buds started to develop.  The flowers are holding up well even with the daily downpours that tend to damage less sturdy ones.

Dendrobium chrysotoxum Lindley 1847, will bloom reliably if you make sure it gets the proper care when it is producing new canes

I have had this plant for so long I can't remember when I brought it.  In the past it was a frustrating and inconsistent bloomer.   In the last few years it has been blooming every year.  What caused the change?  The first thing I did was to start fertilize it heavily the moment I noticed a new growth developing.  I noticed that canes below a certain size won't bloom in my plant, only the ones that near 12 inches tall bloom reliably.  You can see in the photo two sizes of canes, notice that the tall ones have the inflorescences.    This plant needs to be exposed to full sun to grow well.  A few hours of full sun in the morning seem to be enough to produce tall and thick canes.  My plant gets full sun almost until midday.  I have not repotted this plant for many years, it is very pot bound.  I had another plant, which I repotted after it had been in its pot for a long time.  Unfortunately it departed for the great terracota pot in the sky.

Dendrobium devonianum, a challenge to grow and flower in the mountains of Puerto Rico

Years ago I brought this plant of Dendrobium devonianum after seeing a stunning photo of a flower in the Orchid Source forum.   As it often happens to orchid growers, the beauty of the flower overwhelmed any apprehension on whether the plant would grow under my climatic conditions.   In 2008 I acquired two small plants.  Both were just a few inches long and their roots were wrapped in coconut fiber.

The larger plant grew vigorously, when it bloomed I was very disappointed to find that it was actually Dendrobium aduncum.  The little plant grew slowly and produced comparatively weak growths.    The thin, wiry canes that it had didn’t give me too much confidence in its survival.  I was so concerned at the thinness of the cane that I measured the stem near the base of the plant and found that it barely was .8 millimeter wide.

Eventually, in 2011 the orchid produced a cane that seemed large enough to bloom.  But no flowers were produced.  Five years after it had arrived at my garden, in 2012 the orchid finally bloomed. It produced two short lived, pale flowers.  I was happy that it bloomed but sad that the flowers lasted just a few days.  The plant didn’t bloom in 2013.  In 2014 it has produced five flowers, its best performance yet. 

This orchid has proven to be challenging to keep in good shape in my garden.  It has lost canes for no clear reason.  I grows slowly compared with my other pendent Dendrobium.  Its leaves are short lived which means only the last foot or so of the growing cane is leafy at any given moment.  

In a location with a more temperate climate this orchid would do much better.  Given its spectacular flowers, and the fact that there are many growers in the northern countries which can give it the moderate temperatures it likes, I am surprised that this Dendrobium is not more popular.  The Bakers in the book on Dendrobium report that growers say this plant is difficult to grow, something that my own experience confirms. Most of the plants I have seen in captivity outside its native haunts don’t seem to be in a much better condition or more floriferous than mine.

In my experience this plant is not for the novice or neglectful grower perhaps unless you happen to live in those parts of Asia where this plant is native.   Even with the best care this plant may prove a disappointment if you live in an area where the local temperatures are uniformly high for most of the year. 

The plant is potted in a six inch wide wire basket.  It is potted in bark. It gets watered every three to four days.  It gets fertilized once a week during growing season and not at all between December and June.  It gets full morning sun but after 10:00 am it gets light filtered through the canopy of trees and palms.  It has never been repoted.  In my garden it blooms in May and June.