In a basket, under the shade of a large avocado tree |
Growing on a palm trunk in full sun |
St. Croix Botanical Gardens |
In areas with warm weather Myrmecophyla tibicinis does very well
when grown in a basket or mounted on a tree.
This orchid can grow in full sun, in fact it needs a certain amount of
full sun exposure or it will not bloom.
Keeping this plant in too much shade is a common error among beginners. However, this plant seem to grow better when
is given a slight bit of shade from the sun when it is at its most intense,
which locally is between the hours of 11 am and 4 pm.
This orchid can produce a huge
specimen plant if well cared for. In one
of the photos above you can see a truly humongous specimen in a Ceiba pentandra tree in the St. Croix
botanical gardens. To me the key to have a large and floriferous
plant, aside from the right level of sun exposure, is giving it the proper
fertilizing when it is producing new pseudobulbs. This plant should be given a high nitrogen
fertilizer when it is growing to help it produce full sized pseudobulbs. Small, undersized pseudobulbs will not bloom.
The plant growing mounted in a
palm trunk, in full sun all day long, produces relatively short
inflorescences. The plant in the basket,
which is growing under an avocado tree with a comparatively open canopy,
produces the typical long inflorescences.
The inflorescences grow until they emerge from the canopy of the avocado
tree, then they produce the flowers.
1 comment:
Hi Sonia. This same thing happened to my largest plant of Myr. humboltii, it was huge and green and in the course of a short time many of the old pseudobulbs died, only the recent ones survived. No other of my Myrmecophila plants were affected.
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