For Cyrtochilum meirax, I was advised to either grow it on a tree in Peru or hang it on a chain-link fence in Santa Barbara. Not having those options available, I mounted it on a piece of tree fern. It was under fluorescent lights all winter & outdoors in the shade all summer. It has been growing slowly & steadily. Now how do I get it to bloom?
I followed the Kew Checklist & put the right label on Pteroceras semiteretifolium, but that won't bloom either.
Then there was the question of E. tampensis. I was told to hang it on a tree in Florida or grow it in a basket in a greenhouse in Texas. Being in Central NY without a greenhouse, I took half the plant & mounted it on tree fern. I put the other half in a terra cotta pot with a lot of extra perlite. The one in the pot is almost dead. The one I mounted is rooted through the tree fern & has a few buds on it.
About chilling Phals. I put my Phals on the sunporch in May to try to get them to bloom for our show in October. Two of them developed the crud or something from the heat & I threw them out. One, Phal. Zuma's Pixie x Red Lites, is in bud & will start blooming in September. The rest spent the summer growing leaves & roots, which is what they get paid for. Hopefully, they will bloom for the spring shows in Rochester & Binghamton.
Now my only question (at the moment) is how to get my new Dendrobium species to bloom some other time than Labor Day weekend, when I can't get it to judging.
Iris
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