Growing Encyclia tampensis

In this video, I show some of my flowering Encyclia tampensis plants, which are close to peak bloom in Southwest Florida. These Florida natives do well in pots or as mounts and their small delicate flowers have a nice fragrance.

[@Naturamorpho]

I like to propagate the natives too, for the purpose of repopulating areas where they once thrived but are loosing ground for many reasons, specially from over collecting or loss of habitat. For that I usually choose the least showy plants, with the least "prize winning" features, the most simple and average possible parent plants. I don't want the word to spread about "that piece of forest" that has outstanding competition worth flowers for the poachers to go after! My plants aren't grown enough to be taken to their final residence yet, but I guess it will be great fun when the time comes to take them out there, into the wild! thanks for sharing!

[@plantpropagator]

OK - the native plant people would argue that you are not supposed to select plants to be placed back in nature. I try to maintain genetic diversity in the plants that I return to nature. I take whatever plants are around and use those. If you select one or the other, you may be loosing diversity. It is survival of the fittest and natural selection, which may now unfortunately include poaching.....

[@Naturamorpho]

@@plantpropagator Yes, you are right. I just try to avoid using the highly "genetically improved" ones, for those are usually way different from the average wild types! Specially Cattleyas, like the C. intermedia that I have been working with.

[@OrchidMarcus]

Holy tampensis-palooza! You have so many and they all look so healthy!
I love that they don’t grow too tall, keeps it manageable for indoors in the Midwest during cold months. How old is that large one at the beginning of your video, it’s epically stunning!

[@plantpropagator]

Thanks for your comment - most of the flowering tampensis plants that I showed were from seed flasked in 2019 - I just checked my notebook. So, 5 years from seed and probably 3.5-4 years from deflasking - I do not keep the same detailed records of deflask dates. Those were some of my earliest flasked seeds.

[@OrchidMarcus]

@@plantpropagator that’s awesome!

[@nancytorricella4040]

Love them I have few growing very high on my ciprés tree in my backyard always looking for the flowers on this time of the year 😊

[@plantpropagator]

Yeah - they are difficult to appreciate when they are so high up there! I am in awe of their hardiness, when they are high up in the trees, doing well.