My Paph parishii, which I've had for many years, has never done well
and I get a lot of leaves / growths dying. My other Paphs seem to do
OK. Any special culture requirements I should know about?

deg

Dewitt wrote:

My Paph parishii, which I've had for many years, has never done well
and I get a lot of leaves / growths dying. My other Paphs seem to do
OK. Any special culture requirements I should know about?

deg


I just lost one of mine too. There are several reasons that you don't
see this one very often, and one of them is that it is just plain harder
to grow. I think step one is to get a good clone, some grow better than
others. I've had more success growing them dry and cool (think
parvisepalum) than the other way. A very good pleurothallid (and
dendrobium) grower that I know grows Paph. parishii most excellently.
Her environment is quite cool, with a whole lot of humidity (far more
than I).


Something else to think about is that most of the Paph. parishii clones
I am familiar with are on a two year blooming cycle. They are reluctant
bloomers, and the bloom cycles they have seem to take a lot of energy
out of the plant. You see similar things with tree fruits, some apples
bear very heavy in one year, then have only a few fruit the next, and go
nuts again in the third year, and so on. Anyway, don't be surprized if
(should you bloom it) it sulks for a bit after flowering. It might be
best to not repot this species until at least six months after blooming,
but I haven't actually tested that hypothesis.


Good luck, it is a challenging species. Perhaps we will get lucky and
somebody who grows it well can give us some more information.

Rob

--
Rob's Rules: http://www.msu.edu/~halgren
1) There is always room for one more orchid
2) There is always room for two more orchids
2a. See rule 1
3) When one has insufficient credit to purchase
more orchids, obtain more credit