I spotted yet another new growth on my cymbidium while watering. The young plant now has 3 old pseudobulbs, and 4 new shoots. Could this newest growth be a flower spike? The purple tone and the rounded shape seem promising, but there is really no way to tell at this early stage. At the very least, once the 4 growths develop, this orchid will be able to put on a splendid show of blooms when it is ready.
Also, the small growth in the very middle of the picture remains completely unchanged since November. I wonder why?
Edit (2/29): turns out I missed one other new growth. That brings the total of new shoots up to 5, unless there are even more hiding under the media.
I have this same Cymbidium. Did you get yours from Odom's? I noticed that the label is visible in one of your older pics of the plant, and the label looks like Odom's labels. Not to mention being SUPER pot bound in sphag like mine was when I got it.
ReplyDeleteAt any rate, mine is growing like wild. I got it last fall (almost exactly a year ago) and it's gone from the original 4 inch pot it came in, to a 6 inch pot, and is now quickly filling out a 1 gallon pot. I expect it will need yet another larger pot within six months, because it has constantly produced new growths, non-stop. It even starts new growths from growths that aren't even close to mature haha.
Anyway, my point is that I grow mine in very high light, and I've seen that purple coloration on many of the new growths just as they begin to emerge. Also, it just looks a little too pointy to be a flower spike if you ask me, but I could be wrong.
Mine is huge and had done great (as have two other of the "heat tolerant" Cymbidiums I got from Odom) and if it's as heat tolerant as I hope it is, I'll definitely have quite a few blooms this winter. I live in Oklahoma City, and our summers are in the mid-90s for weeks at a time until about mid-september.
Anyway, yours is looking good and I hope you get some blooms for it this year!
Hi Jeff,
DeleteYou're right--I got this orchid from Odom's (a year ago, now). It sounds like yours is doing a whole lot better than mine, though. I really botched that first repotting, when I tried to pry apart all the roots, and ended up damaging all of them. Oddly, even though the roots are now recovered and I have lots of growths, the growths have stayed small.
I would love to see pictures once yours blooms. Since these appear to be seed grown crosses, you and should have slightly different looking flowers.
When I originally repotted it from the 4 inch to the 6 inch, I just dropped it intact into the new pot. I didn't even try to remove all the sphag. My new growths have stayed pretty small (of course MUCH smaller than the standard cool growing hybrids), but within the last few weeks, the first few that started had started to swell up at the base and make little pseudobulbs, but even the fully mature ones have pseudobulbs about the size of a quarter, but due to the parentage, I don't expect that they should be any bigger than that.
ReplyDeleteI'm not familiar with this forum, so I don't know how to post pics, but if you'd give me your email address, I'd take some pictures of what I've got now and send them to you.
Mostly what I've got going on now is that I have the growths that started last fall that are now apparently mature. From each of those, I have two growths that are about halfway mature, and from each halfway mature growth, I've got two new growths just starting to strike.
I grew Cymbidiums back when I lived in Oregon, and I noticed that the flower spikes were pretty distinctive from new growths. For one thing, they are rounder and fatter, but it seems like they always popped up a little farther from the pseudobulbs than new growths did, and seemed to emerge from under the potting mix rather than directly from the pseudobulbs.
Buying clones is fun, because you know you're going to get a quality plant, but I'm really about Odom's seed grown crosses! I'm excited to see what I end up with.
I just hope they bloom. It's been over 100 degrees here for about two months, so I sure hope these guys really are heat tolerant!
I did notice that my growths stayed small for a long time. They'd get to a certain point, and then just stop. Some of the ones that struck back last June have just finished maturing.
I've been repotting so heavily because the root growth is insane. They actually started to crack the 6 inch pots I put them, and now that they're in gallon pots, I can see places on the sides that are bulging out where the roots are pushing against the side of the pots.
Anyway, I'll keep you posted, and I'm glad to find somebody who has the same plant I have from Odom's so that we can compare notes!
-JEFF