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#1
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Stress
I am soooooo stressed!
First, some of my catts are suffering from the dry arctic air we had over the past few weeks (or maybe it is just the air inside that is dry because the furnace had to work overtime to deal with the bitter cold). I can hardly wait until I get my growth chambers built! Then I can keep my plants in a fairly humid environment without too much difficulty. As it is, even with the humidifier going full, the relative humidity has hovered between 30% and 40%. One catt is almost certainly as good as dead, and a couple more have either lost a couple leaves, or the tips of the youngest leaves have turned black. The only consolation is that one of these still has new, apparently healthy sheaths, and some of the others are producing either new pseudobulbs or a new sheath on the newest pseudobulb or there is clear evidence of a healthy inflorescence developing inside the oldest of three sheaths. Not all catts are equally robust and resilient it seems. Second, one of my new epidendrums blasted all of its flowers within days of entering my home. I just repotted it, and found that the potting material had two layers. The top layer was 100% moss, which stayed soaking wet for days. The bottom layer was mud. I learned, from Cal Orchid, that though the plants originally came from them, they were sold a while ago to another grower who sold them to Home Depot. It seems that this other grower did not replace the original potting medium, and instead, when shipping them to Home Depot, just put a layer of moss on top of what was already there. And that must have been relatively recently since there were green weeds in the bottom layer. I doubt there are very many plants that will remain green for any length of time when covered by several centimetres of moss. I became suspicious when I saw that on every web page where epidendrum culture was described, it said that they like a well drained medium and some said that they should dry completely before being watered. That doesn't fit with being potted in mud or moss. It is a good thing I did my emergency repotting or I would probably have lost these plants too! I could see use of some moss as a temporary measure, to prevent dessication during shipping, I suppose, but surely either the recipient institution would remove it on arrival or advise their clients to do so. I would expect that a lot of these would die quickly if such a thick layer of moss was left in place by the consumer. That could only hurt the industry because it would create an impression that orchids are generally hard to grow (not to mention a similar impression created by the large number of sickly orchids that Home Depot has on display - and they're sick because the Home Depot staff are generally clueless on the care of the plants they sell - I've met very few who actually know anything about plants even though some claim to be professionally trained horticulturalists and boast about their diploma -hmmmmmm I wasn't aware that a dimploma counted as a professional degree :-)). Oh well, it is good to know about local suppliers since their incompetence can produce opportunities to get nice plants at a bargain basement price (even if they aren't propely labelled, they serve their purpose if they're pretty and can be made healthy)! Cheers, Ted |
#2
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Stress
Ted,
Hang in there, better days have to be coming. I'm sorry yo hear that you are struggling with humidity. I only had that problem briefly this winter. But I'm lucky that besides running the humidifier I can wet down the floor in my sun room (it is tile with waterproofing underneath). I am still dealing with the effects of the cold. A few of my ascocendas are now coming into bloom along with 1 phal that blasted several of it's buds. Everything else is sitting there. Like I said hang in there. Karen Ted Byers wrote: I am soooooo stressed! First, some of my catts are suffering from the dry arctic air we had over the past few weeks (or maybe it is just the air inside that is dry because the furnace had to work overtime to deal with the bitter cold). I can hardly wait until I get my growth chambers built! Then I can keep my plants in a fairly humid environment without too much difficulty. As it is, even with the humidifier going full, the relative humidity has hovered between 30% and 40%. One catt is almost certainly as good as dead, and a couple more have either lost a couple leaves, or the tips of the youngest leaves have turned black. The only consolation is that one of these still has new, apparently healthy sheaths, and some of the others are producing either new pseudobulbs or a new sheath on the newest pseudobulb or there is clear evidence of a healthy inflorescence developing inside the oldest of three sheaths. Not all catts are equally robust and resilient it seems. Second, one of my new epidendrums blasted all of its flowers within days of entering my home. I just repotted it, and found that the potting material had two layers. The top layer was 100% moss, which stayed soaking wet for days. The bottom layer was mud. I learned, from Cal Orchid, that though the plants originally came from them, they were sold a while ago to another grower who sold them to Home Depot. It seems that this other grower did not replace the original potting medium, and instead, when shipping them to Home Depot, just put a layer of moss on top of what was already there. And that must have been relatively recently since there were green weeds in the bottom layer. I doubt there are very many plants that will remain green for any length of time when covered by several centimetres of moss. I became suspicious when I saw that on every web page where epidendrum culture was described, it said that they like a well drained medium and some said that they should dry completely before being watered. That doesn't fit with being potted in mud or moss. It is a good thing I did my emergency repotting or I would probably have lost these plants too! I could see use of some moss as a temporary measure, to prevent dessication during shipping, I suppose, but surely either the recipient institution would remove it on arrival or advise their clients to do so. I would expect that a lot of these would die quickly if such a thick layer of moss was left in place by the consumer. That could only hurt the industry because it would create an impression that orchids are generally hard to grow (not to mention a similar impression created by the large number of sickly orchids that Home Depot has on display - and they're sick because the Home Depot staff are generally clueless on the care of the plants they sell - I've met very few who actually know anything about plants even though some claim to be professionally trained horticulturalists and boast about their diploma -hmmmmmm I wasn't aware that a dimploma counted as a professional degree :-)). Oh well, it is good to know about local suppliers since their incompetence can produce opportunities to get nice plants at a bargain basement price (even if they aren't propely labelled, they serve their purpose if they're pretty and can be made healthy)! Cheers, Ted |
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