"Dave Sheehy" wrote in message
...
K Barrett ) wrote:
: So just *WHAT* is it with bulbos??????? I've tried wet . moss.
bark......
: they just linger for me. Talk about ticking me off!!!

: Bill Thoms says to put them on treefern (horizontal) in 1/4 inch of
standing
: water... pfft! Nada. No new growth much less blooms. So I put them on
: bark and/or s moss in clay & nada: no new growths or blooms....... so
WHAT
: do they want??? God they **** me off!!!!

: Best result I've gotten is high light in baskets with dry moss and I
thinK
: they bloom just before they expire... which doesn't get me anywhere
fast.

About 2 years ago you I was thinking about getting into Bulbos and their
ilk
after I fell in love with Cirr. Elizabeth Ann 'Buckleberry'. I was
wondering
if it would be possible to keep them in my window sill environment. For
reference I grow the majority of my plants in an east facing window that
gets
lots of morning sun and the humidity runs between 30-60%. You and I
(mostly,
there might have been a couple of other people chime in) discussed it on
rgo
and ended up concluding the only way to find out would be to try it out
and
see what happened.

Here's what I found out so far for my environment. A month or so after
our discussion I bought a Cirr Elizabeth Ann from a vendor at the AOS show
in Sacramento. It was mounted in a nice thick wad of spagh on a piece of
cork. It was spiking and the spike matured and bloomed, so far so good.
The following year a new bulb formed and spiked but the buds blasted 2
days
after I fertilized it (@#?&!). Encouraged by my success so far I bought a
Bulb. wendlandianum start and co-mounted it with the Elizabeth Ann. It
sulked for at least 6 months, lost the only leaf it had but finally grew a
new bulb and is doing OK so far. The Elizabeth Ann has really taken off
this
year. It has 2 leads now and one of the leads produced 2 new psuedobulbs.
The leaves are twice as big as any of the previous leaves so it appears to
be quite happy. It should spike sometime in August so it's too early yet
to
know for sure if it will bloom this year.

So, for me a hanging cork mount with spaghnum is working pretty well. I
water
every 2-3 days by soaking the spagh thoroughly. The spagh is often bone
dry
to the touch so the plants aren't constantly damp as is often recomended.
I
don't consciously dry them out, mounted plants in my environment dry out
pretty quickly and I can't be chained to the kitchen sink watering my
plants
all day at their beck and whim. It even went without watering for over
week
while I was on vacation. I was worried about how well it would take being
dry for week but it doesn't seem to have bothered it all. Right now, I've
got my fingers crossed that I'll be getting not one, but 3 flower spikes
this year from the Eliz. Ann this year and if I'm really lucky a spike
from
the B. wendlandianum although it may still be a bit small for that.

Hope that helps,

Dave


Well that makes me feel a little better, Dave. The wet then dry cycle seems
to be the key....

I actually *read* a book about these, (Segirst's book on Bulbos) and she
recommends an open medium, that allows the plant to get wet and then dry
over the day. Maybe a basket lined with sphag and filled with bark mix
perhaps top-dressed with s moss....

Argh!

I decide to read the book AFTER I took all mine out of moss and clay and put
them in moss and plastic baskets..... But you should have seen the bush
snails!!! ICK! And the fungus gnat population has been reduced (for this
nano-second only...)

Also she recommends 'light shade' for the species I'm growing...now I have
to figure out what she means by that. I think I'll put them in phal light
and bump up from there.

sigh. Good thing I'll never have to decide whether to take the lady or the
tiger...looks like when given an option I'll choose wrong every time! *G*!

K