Dtps Jungo City in bloom

Dtps. Jungo City

     I apologize for the long gap between updates.  Life got significantly busier, and I'm not sure when I'll be able to return to the old pace of posting every 2-3 days.  In the meantime, I have a large backlog of updates to go through.

     Dtps. Jungo City bloomed at the very beginning of May. I wanted to wait for the spike to come into full bloom, but due to general dehydration issues, the flowers wilted soon after opening.  So these two pictures (the top with flash, and the bottom without flash) are the only ones I've captured.

Dtps. Jungo City (natural light)

     The color on the flowers is almost identical to my Dtps. Yu Pin Burgundy blooms.  However, at 2.5" across, the flowers are significantly larger.  I don't know if the wrinkling of the flower petals is a result of underwatering, or just a consequence of this orchids genetics.  I hope I'll find out with next year's blooming.

Main spike withers on Dtps Jungo City

Dtps. Jungo City

     All the buds blasted on my Dtps. Jungo City, and the top of the spike is dying off.  It's not drying, but rather it turned soft and limp.  Not all hope is lost for this bloom cycle, however.  A node lower down the spike has activated and is growing a side spike.  

Side spike

     Hopefully if the cold is what blasted the last set of spikes, then the season will be more amenable by the time this one is ready to bloom.

Buds blast on Dtps. Jungo City

Dtps. Jungo City

     My Dtps. Jungo City has me worried.  While the lowest of the buds is shiny and green and growing well, the next three buds on the spike look like they will blast. As you can see in the picture below, the buds are wrinkly on the outside, and a very different color from the lowest bud.  The yellowing of the stem on the second lowest bud isn't promising, either.

Blasting flower buds

     At least the lowest bud seems to be growing ok, but it would be a shame if I only get one flower out of this blooming.  I'm not sure what caused this problem. Perhaps it was either the recent cold coming in through the open windows, or the subsequent drop in humidity when we finally did close the windows and turn the heat on.  All the other spiking phals seem to be ok for now.

Edit (2/8/13): The lower bud is now blasting as well.  

Phalaenopsis flower spikes update

Phalaenopsis Orchids in spike

     Six of my phalaenopsis orchids went into spike earlier this fall.  The spikes are maturing at various rates and all seem to be growing well. 

Noid Phalaenopsis

     

     The tallest of these belongs to my noid phal, which started opening its flowers around the first week of January.  I first noticed the side spikes on Nov 5, meaning that the spikes took about 2 months to start blooming. 

     The orchid blasted two buds while I was away, but has opened more flowers successfully since then.  There are relatively few buds on each side spike, possibly because these are reblooms from old spikes, rather than new ones.  I'll do a full post on the orchid once it reaches full bloom, which may take as much as a month longer.

Dtps. Jungo City

     Dtps. Jungo City started growing its spike on October 15.  Over three months have now passed, and the spike is still growing.  The spike is 14" tall. Its terminal nodes are developing into buds, so I can hope to see the first flowers open within a month.

Dtps. Yu Pin Burgundy

     Dtps. Yu Pin Burgundy started growing its first spike on Nov 6, and its second spike on Dec 4. The spikes are 9.5" and 4" tall, respectively, and have much more growth to do before they mature.

Phal. Gold Tris 'Desk Pot'

     Phalaenopsis Gold Tris started growing its new spike around Nov 13. The side spike started growing about a month later.  The main spike is now about 5" tall, and starting to form buds.

Closeup on Phal. Gold Tris spike

     I'm excited by the darkening tone around the buds, in case that means that more red color will show through in the flowers when it blooms.  The orchid arrive in bloom last spring with flowers that were mostly yellow and white. I'll be curious to see if blooming in colder temperatures will cause more red color to be visible.

Phalaenopsis Memoria Audrey Meldman 'Mendenhall'

     Phal. Memoria Audrey Meldman started growing a spike about two months ago, on Nov 13.  The spike has grown very slowly; it's quite thin, and only a few inches tall.  The side spike, which first appeared a month ago, is so small that I'm wondering if it will turn out to be just a single flower.  This is another orchid that I'm very curious to see if it will bloom redder for me, than the flowers it arrived with last Spring. However, at this rate, the weather might very well warm up all over again before the flowers are ready to open.

Noid Phalaenopsis in spike

     The final of my spiking phals is the spotted noid, whose spike started growing last month.  It's growing at a good rate, though it will be a few months more before these flowers are ready to open.

And that's all of them!

Propping up drooped phalaenopsis leaves

Dtps. Jungo City

     While I was away during Thanksgiving weekend, someone (there are only two posible suspects) knocked my Dtps. Jungo City partly out of its pot.  The orchid dried out, and its leaves wilted as a result.  I righted the poor plant as soon as I came home, and its leaves soon regained their firmness... but they remained flopped over.  I was worried about the leaves developing breaks at the flex points, so I'm trying to right them by propping them up with wooden stakes.  

     In particular, I want to protect the leaves from breaking while I'm away again for the holiday season.  All my orchids will experience a "drought" of at least 2 weeks with no watering.

     The flower spike is now 5 inches tall, and growing fast.  I'll probably stake it up as well if it gets past 10" or so in height.

Repotting Dtps Jungo City

Doritaenopsis Jungo City

     Dtps Jungo City shed one of its leaves, resulting in a very unbalanced plant. Its long leaves and relative lack of root mass were causing it to flop over precariously. I wanted to reposition the orchid so that it wouldn't have as much of a tilt, and that meant I needed to repot.

Mix of rotten and healthy roots

     When I took the orchid out of its media, I found that while it had grown several new healthy roots, many of its old roots had continued to die off.  Overall, I think the roots still look better than when I first repotted this orchid in August, but that's only because of the new roots that have grown in.  All the old roots look like they are on their way out.  I cut off the rotten material, and potted the orchid back into its original media, trying to position it more upright.  The orchid is so top heavy, that it made the task rather difficult.

     I also gave the repotted orchid a 30 minute soak in physan solution, as will be my standard practice from now on when repotting anything.  

More balanced now

Flower spike on Dtps Jungo City: 25 days

     The flower spike has grown since I first spotted it in late October, but rather slowly.  Perhaps the same cold that helped initiate all these flowerings has also slowed growth rate.  This spike still has a very long way to grow.  

First sign of flower spike on Dtps. Jungo City

Phalaenopsis spike, week 1

     The recent cooling of the temperatures must have sent "time to bloom" signals to my orchids.  In addition to Cattleya Cernua and Tolumnia Pink Panther, my Dtps. Jungo City is preparing to flower.

      This is another orchid flower spike that I managed to spot in its earliest stages. This little protrusion at the orchid's base is the start of a spike.  Two early signs differentiate it from a root: it's purple in color when every other root on this orchid emerged with a pale yellow-green tip.  And second, it's segmented.  This is really hard to see in the picture above, but became more apparent in the few days afterwards.

    

     This picture was taken on October 15.  I don't know how long the spike will take to reach maturity.  

I Don't Like Sphagnum Moss

Newly repotted Dtps Jungo City (left) and Dtps Yu Pin Burgundy (Right)

     Sphagnum moss is a good orchid media, and many people grow their phals in it successfully, but it's not for me.  I last watered my sphagnum potted phals almost two weeks ago, and they were still moist today.  It freaks me out when orchids take that long to dry out; I start to imagine all sorts of rot and fungus spreading rampant through the root system when my pots aren't drying within a week.  I've had a good experience growing phals in bark, so I decided to go with what has always worked for me.

Dtps Yu Pin Burgundy has a healty root system

     The roots on my Dtps Yu Pin Burgundy looked great; most of the roots were firm and unbroken, and there were many growing tips.  The phal had a good mix of older and new roots.  

     I potted it into a clear version of the 4.5" pot that it came with.

Dtps Jungo City roots before and after trimming

     The Dtps Jungo City, on the other hand, was in poor shape.  The orchid had dropped a leaf soon after I got it, which may be an indication that it was less capable to handle stress.  The Dtps had a ball of old blackened moss near the root base, and many many rotten roots.  Of the roots that remained after trimming, all have blackened tips, which is a strong indicator of prior bad potting conditions.  There are a couple new roots budding off the base, so I am confident that this orchid will recover quickly if I get the care right, though.

     The remaining root system on this phal was far too small to pot back into a 5" pot like the one it came with.  Instead, I downsized to a 4" clear plastic pot.  With it's tall leaves and minimal roots, the phal is a little shaky in it's pot, but hopefully it will stabilize once the media settles in and the new roots help it establish itself.

New Orchid: Dtps. Jungo City

Doritaenopsis Jungo City

     Switching gears from the young phal gigantea, here is the largest of the orchids in my order.  Dtps. Jungo City is another of my attempts to acquire a red phalaenopsis.  While I'm not expecting any true scarlet out of this one, pictures online seem to show a very pleasing deep magenta for the blooms.

     The phal is fairly large, with the longest leaf measuring at just over 9".  The orchid is growing in sphagnum moss in a 5" plastic pot. There are 3 mature leaves, and one new leaf growing.  The roots near the base of the plant all seem firm and healthy, and I do not plant to disturb the media to investigate any further.

    Since the sphagnum looks really fresh and the orchid seems healthy, I decided to not repot.  I will try to continue growing it in the sphagnum for the next year.  I should be able to judge wetness of the media using the skewer method in the same way as I do with my bark mixes.