Phalaenopsis corningiana and grow area update

My Phal. corningiana had seven buds on four spikes and had just finished flowering. However, I made the mistake of changing the growing conditions drastically (see below) after the buds had developed so it got shocked I think and subsequently had a hard time opening its flowers. Here's a shot of one of the blooms. There's an imperfection on the lower sepals because I had sprayed Physan the day before to control some fungus issues on my Phal. mariae that was next to it. Will try to flower this plant again next year to see if the severe cupping is a characteristic of this individual, or if it was just my rookie mistake. 

I recently 'upgraded' my grow lights to a six-tube 4' T5 HO fixture, and realized pretty fast that this was probably an overkill for my current conditions in the small space. However, it is still better than my small four-tube 2' T5 HO fixture, so it is here to stay. This new fixture can probably light up an entire growth room in terms of Phalaenopsis light requirements. Using an estimate for light intensity by an iPhone app, I'm currently only running two tubes on this fixture for 1000-1500 foot candles. I had used four out of the six tubes for a month prior to this and most plants were getting a little stressed out because it was at about 2000-2500 foot candles. Here's a look at the current situation and it appears I might have a little more room to expand the collection!

Repotting time

Winter has officially ended in California with the last of the rains we experienced in late March, which means growth is gaining some momentum on some of these phals.

I also recently noticed the sad state that my standard Phal. cornu-cervi is in and decided that it needed to be repotted. It was sulking and is refusing to spike. Here's a picture of it looking much happier in new media next to Phal. bellina fma. coerulea after repotting.

There's actually a spike developing on the bellina and hopefully it won't stall as a result of my intervention.

In other news, I think there's a spike forming on the Phal. mariae! It was not doing much over the winter and but was growing steadily. More on that plant in the future hopefully.

February rains!

The last two weeks has been great for the orchids. The Ridiculously Resilient Ridge dissipated finally and we got a sprinkling of rain. Then, earlier this month an atmospheric river aka The Pineapple Express dumped a whole lot of rain on us. However, we are still very far away from even getting close to the amount of rain to match the record low for rainfall accumulation which means we are still very much in drought conditions.

As a home indoor grower, the rain made a significant effect on humidity levels. While my humidifier was working hard in Dec/Jan to keep the RH at merely 45%, it has not even turned on the last two weeks! The average RH has been around 60% which is quite a healthy level for both humans and phals alike.

Most plants seem to be loving it, and the two new spikes on my Phal. modesta are finally making buds. Still no sign of buds on the new spikes of the Phal. corningiana though. The Phal. bellina fma. coerulea is even working on a new spike! However, I haven't seen any spiking activity from my Phal. amabilis or Phal. cornu-cervi, and I'm assuming they are still not adjusted to the growing conditions yet.

Looking forward to a nice smelling spring.

Continued efforts in 2014

Happy 2014, fellow phal-o-philiacs! It has been a rather quiet winter season in the grow space in terms of flowers but a few spikes are rapidly expanding and most phals are undergoing good vegetative growth. This Phal. gigantea x LD's Bear King plant in particular is a great example of the hybrid vigour you'd expect from a species crossed to another vigorous complex hybrid, and the shape and color of the leaves are very attractive on its own.

The Chienlung Luedgiana primary hybrid is STILL flowering, and producing some welcome color and sweet grapey scents in the grow area. On the other hand, two species (Phal. corningiana and Phal. modesta) have made new spikes and I should hope for some bud formation soon.

The winter in Davis has been extremely dry and this is the third straight year of drought conditions. Some rain would be nice, so the humidifier can rest, but reprieve seems unlikely so far.

October update

So far this month, there has only been a new flowering but I think most plants are settling down and steadily making good progress. Both my Phal. corningiana and Phal. modesta are putting out new spikes and buds are still forming on the currently flowering Phal. bellina and Chienlung Luedgiana. The grow area is pretty much at capacity, but I've been tempted many times to buy more phals. I actually have space left for high light plants near the lights so perhaps a few miniature Dendrobium (from Borneo of course) are in order.

My only paph species wasn't happy in S/H so I repotted it in sphagnum and put it in the humid chamber. The repotted Orchidview Phal. violacea are also in here and are slowly recovering. One of the indigos is probably large enough for flowering and I'm hoping it will put out a spike once it has recovered.

Grow area pest control

*Non-orchid post warning*

One of the perennial problems that most orchid growers face is from pests. This requires constant vigilance and monitoring of the grow area for these bugs. Most of the orchids I have are in 100% NZ sphagnum so it tends to be a lot cleaner than using other substrates. Even so, I do see some fungus gnats and whiteflies (from my outdoor tomato plants...) flying around indoors, which brings me to this carnivorous plant that I got a few months ago. This is Pinguicula Sethos, a primary hybrid of Pinguicula ehlersiae and Pinguicula moranensis, putting up a really cute flower with a spur!

It is quite happy living among the orchids and has even caught a few fungus gnats. That's a good indication that things are pretty pest-free at the moment but it's great that this Ping is acting like a living, breathing, monitoring device that also happens to be a pest control agent!

Window growing version 3.0

A few things have been upgraded the last month or so in terms of humidity control and light quality.

A humidifier is a must-have in my case because the humidity drops precipitously during the day and even with my windows closed, this has some effect on the grow area. The 'upgrade' I performed was with the purchase of a humidistat/temperature controller. I've set the humidity at 54% and this has performed admirably to keep the grow area between 50-60% at all times, even when the air conditioner comes on in the evening. I'll be attaching a heater to the temperature controller when the weather cools down and keep the grow space warm for continuous growth in the winter!

In terms of light, the T5 HO fixture originally came with four 6400K bulbs. It worked well, but cast a bluish glow on everything. To counteract this, I replaced half of the bulbs with 3000K bulbs to get a wider spectrum of wavelengths and that did provide a more natural light quality. Hopefully this will also promote flowering as purported by using the redder spectrum, although this might not be the case for these phals that came from equatorial regions. Nonetheless, the flowers look better in this combination of bulbs and the foliage seem to like this as well.

Here is a picture of the current set up with the lights on.

I'm still working on organizing the grow space based upon the requirements of the different species and observing the growth of each individual. Each species seem to have their own quirks and behave differently in the grow space, so it's still a bit of a trial and error to find the position that each plant likes. Learning the requirements of each species is part of the fun I suppose.

Lights up!

Recently updated to the final version of my envisioned grow area (hopefully). As accounted in my previous entries, I've faced some challenges getting roots to grow on smaller seedlings after transport stress. I think I've finally found a solution after reading about media selection. The small phals are now repotted in 100% NZ sphagnum and under humidity domes 24/7. They look happier and some new leaves are actually emerging. Hope they do the next thing and push out roots. It might also be because I installed T5 lights at the grow area. This is definitely helping some of the higher light phals that are mature so I'm hopeful that this will incite some positive growth for these as well. The added advantage is that the lights allow me to face the phals inwards, increasing the aesthetic factor of their eventual flowering habit and making their care more enjoyable.

Here's a picture of the current set up. Now only if I could automate the watering in the home setting without flooding everything..

Grow area reorganization

Update on what's been going on with my little grow area. The air conditioner definitely did it's job this past week during the heatwave as temperatures soared over 100F for almost a week, so the phals were safe. Kept the room around 85F in the day and between 50% to 70% RH. Nothing has changed yet for the seedlings in terms of vegetative development. This growing area is by the South facing windows and I've noticed that the roofing is keeping all direct light away from this area this time of the year so I wonder if my light levels are adequate sometimes.

The tiered rack with the smaller plants are on now has a layer of LECA underneath that's kept wet, as you can see here. I keep these phals (and one paph) under a half-cracked dome at night to keep the heat/humidity in.

As for the larger more established plants, they are kept together in a wooden basket by the humidifier that you can see peeking out on the right.

They all get a nice misting in the morning and evening with the fan on. When the air conditioner gets turned on at night, the RH drops dramatically and the humidifier definitely gets a workout when this happens. I'm this close to getting a humidistat to automate this..

Grow area

I'm current growing indoors, by a windowsill in the dining area with no artificial lighting. This window faces South and the phals seem to like the indirect light. Later in the summer, there will be some direct sunlight in the evening. My hope is that these phals will adapt and flower in this condition without supplemental lighting. Others windowsill growers have grown and flowered both species and hybrids by their windows, so this gives me hope!

As for temperature and humidity, I'm using the relatively cheap 'Acurite 00325' monitor and you can see it hanging out close to the tray on the right. I'm keeping growing conditions between 72F (night) and 85F (day) in this time of the year, while the humidity ranges greatly between 40% and 60% RH (Relative Humidity). Humidity is a little out of my control at this point. In the winter, I hope to acquire a humidifier to assist with keeping the RH at around 40%.

The main goal now is to help the plants acclimate to current conditions and to see if they will start growing good root systems. This usually involves a lot of waiting for Phalaenopsis, but one can only hope!