Gene Schurg wrote:
Need some ideas from you vanda types.

5 years ago I purchased two Aranda Floraweb plants (Arachis flos-aeris x
Vanda Emma van Deventer). Not something you see around much. These plants
are 40+ years old from the Singapore Botanical Gardens. Both plants were 5+
feet tall....big guys. Both plants had previously bloomed. They had been
neglected and needed some TLC.

I cut them back to reduce the naked stem length and put them in fresh vanda
baskets. Each year I would hang them outside in a crepe myrtle tree in my
back yard and they would grow and look very happy when they came back into
the greenhouse in September. In the greenhouse during the winter they kind
of stopped doing anything....no decline but they seemed to just sit up high
in the light and wait for the next summer to arrive.

No blooms. The larger one is reaching 5 feet tall again and the other is
about 3 1/2 feet. I have to sit it on the ground to see into the crown!

This year I bought a bag of red lava rock from HD and took one of the plants
out of the teak baskets (it was falling apart) and placed the plant in a 12
inch clay pot (a big pot) and placed the lava rock around the base. The
other plant I just put the lava rock in the basket. In May I put both
plants in full sun on a bench. To give them more sun would require putting
on the room of my house!

The larger plant in clay pot is responding well sending out really nice
roots. The smaller one looks good but the larger one is really shining. I
fertilize each week when the other vandas get their squirt of MSU.

SO the question....Does anyone grow anything closely related to this cross
who has bloomed it? Any other suggestions?

BTW...the remains of the old flower spike was over 5 feet long so besides
being an old plant I expect it to be an awesome show. Extra bonus points if
I could get to to bloom in time for the October show. I don't know when to
expect it to bloom.

Good Growing,
Gene


I haven't bloomed an aranda but have bloomed my share of vandaceaous
types under lights and outsid eof rthe summer

( http://www,orchidcourt.com/vandpics.html )


I have been using MI formula for a couple years, but the old formula was
- no regular fertilizer for vandas, only bloom booster, heavy and often.
I heard a speaker say recently that he doesn't fertilize vandas at all
because that makes them grow leaves and not bloom. Try one with one
plant and the other with the second. It's worth a shot. I definitely
think a lot of light is best also.

Good luck - and we'll expect to see pics in Sept on abpo!