Encyclia Renate Schmidt (Ency. Orchid Jungle x Enc. alata)

It is almost a miracle that this orchid survived and grew large enough to bloom.  I brought it as a small seedling from Kawamoto orchids around eight years ago.  Unfortunately this plant went through a streak of unremitting bad luck.  At first it grew vigorously but then its media stayed too wet and it lost its roots, this was a severe set back for the orchid.  Then it had to slowly rebuild its root system, when it was on its way to recovery it was attacked by brown scales.  I removed every single scale and treated the plant with insecticide, but the scales proved to be an stubborn foe.  Finally, last year things started looking up for this plant and it produced its largest pseudobulb to date, which by normal Encyclia standards is of a mediocre size, but nevertheless it was pleasing to see the plant do some progress.  The plant produced just three flowers, this is the first to open, certainly not an impressive performance, but hey, it's a start!

Encyclia Orchid Jungle (Ency. alata x Ency. phoenicea)

I brought this Encyclia as a tiny seedling.  It grew vigorously and eventually turned into a large plant.  Then root rot struck and almost all the plant died.  Only a single scrawny two pseudobulb piece with hardly any roots survived the debacle.   Having learned my lesson, I potted the pseudobulbs using medium sized pieces of charcoal and a few stones so that even if the media decayed somewhat it would still remain relatively open.  The plant responded well to the repotting and has been blooming for the last two years.  This year inflorescence is larger than the one it had last year.  The plant has develop a good root system and I expect and even better blooming next year.  After I water this plant I don't water again until the media is approaching dryness.

These plants grow well in the hot coastal lowlands of Puerto Rico.  I live near the coast and the wind and humidity is favorable for these orchids.  They tolerate the worst of the dry season and, if potted in the right media, the wettest spells of the rainy season don't bother them either.  Perhaps the only thing that can be a bit bothersome is the long inflorescences which can become damaged when the wind blows strongly.

Encyclia Orchid Jungle (Enc. alata x Enc. phoenicia)

This orchid is a hybrid, the cross of Encyclia alata and Encyclia phoenicia.  My plant is the product of a selfing of Encyclia Orchid Jungle.  My plant strongly favors the alata parent and the influence of phoenicia is mostly shown in the enhanced color of the flowers which are more colorful than those of alata.  The flowers are very flat in the sense that the petals and sepals are all in one plane, in a side photo they are barely visible, this makes for a wonderful presentation of the flower when seen from the front.  The flower segments borders are barely recurved back in contrast with those of alata.  I had an alata in which the flower segment would curl back in the mature flower.  The flowers have a dark chocolate color at the ends of the sepals and petals but the color changes into a light green toward the base the floral segments.  The chocolate and green floral segments strongly contrast with the yellow lip.  The lip has ridges and these are decorated with maroon lines, the lip margin has a narrow yellow line along its lower end.

My plant grew vigorously and bloomed well for years but sadly most of the plant succumbed to root rot during a particularly wet summer.  All that could be saved from the root rot was a single pseudobulb.  In time this pseudobulb produced new growths and started blooming again.  The lesson here is to be alert to signs that the media in which your Encyclia plants is becoming decayed and its killing the roots. This is harder that you would think as the media can look quite good on the top and be in a crummy condition under the surface.  That’s why I am planting my Encyclias now either in pots with rock or in very open baskets that allow the roots to have an extremely good access to oxigen and that lets any piece of decayed media to fall away when I water the plants.