Great video. My ideal orchid...Vigorous, compact, early bloomer, fragrant, and if possible interesting flowers. Did I say fragrant? Definitely want fragrance. Keep up the good work.
Yeah - thanks - fragrance is very high up on my list. I will not use a flower in my crosses, unless it is fragrant. But, unfortunately, breeding for fragrance in orchids is supposed to be tough. I have had different flowers from the same seed capsule, which have different fragrances - they are fragrant but different....
I will try to share the blooms as they come. But, I might miss a few during my travels away from Florida.... Hopefully, I will catch the end of the first blooms on two of my dens that are just about ready to open.
Orchid hybridizing is a patient person's hobby for sure. Some genera are very fast, I've gotten Mormodes and Galendra to bloom in the first year of growth, others test your patience. Sadly orchids within Laeliinae tend to be fairly slow to first bloom. The quickest I've had were probably Caularthron, which bloomed in the second year. The good thing is that once you get the first few years without blooms behind you, if you make a few crosses every year, you'll start getting multiple first blooms every year.
Unfortunately, I am not as patient as I need to be. I want fast flowers and have been getting that with some of my crosses. I think that I can use my fast blooming Cattleyas and Dendrobiums in crosses to get faster flowering of future hybrids. Thanks for your comment and Happy New Year!!
6 years is too long - and now I know that you can get orchid flowers much faster with some of the new hybrids. I do not want to sacrifice speed for nice flowers and will find some nice flowers that are Alsop fast....
Great info! I knew to pick vigorous plants to cross with, but good to know about picking out the best growing early in flask… though I think I’m still in the keep everything phase of flasking. That might change swiftly as I run out of space… your burlap phals are looking good! I wanted to make some crosses with Phal equestris, all the crossed I’ve seen look spectacular with lots of branching, but my equestris and equestris hybrids grow soooo slow :-/ As soon as you picked up the Dendrobium I Jews it was a Woo Leng hybrid ha.
I got a blc maikai cutting and it bloomed after a few months and I got cutting which is growing a lot but no flowers. It can be quite frustrating sometimes 😂
Maikai should be Bsn. Maikai. People still use Blc. and Bc. but it was reclassified due to more complete genetics info. Yeah, sometimes, divisions can take a while to flower - plants have to reestablish and get big - not so much with the new hybrids but I agree, it can be frustrating. Thanks for your comment!!
Happy to share. Yeah, I’m not as patient as I should be with my flowers. But, if a plant is not going to flower quickly, it will be replaced with one that will….,
That palm tree is a Happy Place for orchids, the growth results indicate. Those other Phal's may start spiking with the cooler Florida winter temps yet to come.
I'm not in a rush to see flowers on my orchids and currently caring for from such an unpredictably hot, humid, rainy this summer then dry and cold snaps this winter. I wish Mother Nature would make up her mind in 2025. In general, I am culling my collection this year to fewer and physically smaller orchids where I have time to appreciate what I have.
Thanks for your comment - I do know a lot of people that have gone to growing smaller stature orchids. When I see some of the huge orchids that my colleagues grow, I just roll my eyes because I do not have the space. I know others who have gone so far that they are growing only miniatures. I think those are just too small. I have seen many growers who are stocking smaller plants with slightly smaller flowers. For me, there is nothing like a large flower but I try to get those on slightly smaller plants, which I think means faster blooms. I agree that Mother Nature is fickle - wish that I had a greenhouse but my space and budget are both quite small...
Who knows. Maybe now that its going to flower, i would wait until next flowering season. Because it could be that now it will flower regularly for you. But yeah.. thats a tough call. And i imagine your expectations will be much too high after such a long time of efforts. Nice video
It is a white flower with a yellow throat. There are similar or nicer flowers on some of the newer hybrids that I know will flower way earlier. White Reception and Pastoral are examples but I imagine that there are some newer ones that are even nicer. AND to top it off, white is not an orchid flower color that I even like!!.
I have about four different plants that won't bloom.. and I'm talking about over 6 years! I do everything that works for the others, including moving them seasonally to get varying degrees of light. They have lovely foliage, healthy roots with vigorous growth but still absolutely nothing..! I wish there was a way I could identify this trait before I buy because I definitely don't want any more
This sounds a lot like the plant that I show - I think that it was growing well for the vendor and they kept on dividing and selling them. I do try to stay away from the older hybrids, although some of them are favorites because they do so well. I think that the only option is to just get rid of the plants that do not bloom well under your conditions. One viewer commented that my plant may now bloom more often since it has reached a critical stage. But, I am not willing to give this plant any more chances - I should have tossed it a few years ago... Thanks for your comment!!
@plantpropagator I agree! I intend to just place them somewhere in the garden where they'll increase humidity for the other plants and forget about them! At least they'll be useful..😄😄😄
IMO with the observations over time and my experiences, is it’s not so much care but source. As you stated you select the most vigorous seedlings when replating, which is good and vigor is highly important . My experience with divisions is fairly lengthy and most if not all regardless of species are set back in growth which affects bloom frequency . The act of dividing a plant negatively affects it and the lost time is magnified when compared to a seedling which is eagerly growing . In the wild younger plants are the most vigorous and many old species are spent in reproductive activity , thus infrequency of bloom some lack of vigor.
I see your point - I know that dividing an orchid can slow it down. But, I have seen very vigorous divisions that are minimally affected and growth resumes quickly. I do think that there is a genetic base to vigor and fast flowering - these are certainly influenced by environment and conditions - this is called "genotype by environment interactions" in the scientific literature. I also think that vigor can be determined early in the life of an orchid. I do not agree that older plants are spent later in their life (like people?) since you can take a division and rejuvenate plants and I have seen some huge plants that just flower like crazy. Old hybrids - maybe; old plants can be rejuvenated (if they are not virus infested). But, I am still learning about orchids and am happy to consider other ideas and change my mind..... As always, thanks for your comment.
@ yes I think cultivated plants have a bit more vigor than say a wild one. I keep thinking of how species plants fare in the wild and what conditions they endure. Case in point in a SVKL video of his adventure and outstanding trip to Brazil you see some clumps of orchids with new growths and old deceased growths . Patches are here and there mostly small to medium size and have an equal amount of of dried up growths and new activity which is flowering . The stark difference in care from home collections to this is amazing . Obviously home collections are different and each species is also different in adapting but one constant remains, that is the newest growth produces flower and older passive pseudobulbs will not . In a division are you receiving a new shoot division or old passive . If old and passive then they are slow to revive. New growth divisions are more vigorous and will flower sooner than an old piece of a division
And another case in point: I had a very large clump of BC Rustic Spots which I divided . Probably had 4-5 new growth points which all did very well and didn’t seem to slow down but the older parts of the division were extremely slow to revive, some didn’t revive at all. Seems the newest growth was a factor … just an observation
@@seanhorgan288 Many orchid plants in the wild can put on a show but most are just barely hanging on. They are just attached to trees with their roots, in an environment where nothing else grows, only relying on rain water and whatever nutrients are dropped onto their roots. They are tough but also struggle to survive. In our collections, they are pampered. Maybe, we could take a lesson from nature? Well - maybe not....
@@seanhorgan288 I ran a tissue culture lab for many years, working on plants that were difficult to propagate. It was clear and the general idea was to take the youngest tissue for propagation as this was the most manipulable tissue that was available to achieve propagation. You can use the older parts of some plants. For orchids, once you get the dormant eyes to break, that new tissue is young again and you should be able to move it forward. That was a great and important observation.
I am sorry but I do not have a good answer for you on empty sheaths. I have had sheaths that seemed empty but the flowers were buried in the pseudobulb. I have had some flowers that came out of the pseudobulb and there was no sheath. Some orchids bloom periodically, after the pseudobulb emerges while many bloom the same month of the year from all the pseudobulbs that formed over the previous year. If you have a sheath that has not produced a flower in a full year, you may not get anything from that sheath. I am sorry that I do not have a more precise answer.Thanks for watching my video and for your comment.
Unlikely, then, that you will specialize in something like _Laelia speciosa_ , which is notorious for taking many years to reach maturity. Also, the desire to see multiple blooms per year is why growers like the species that can send out multiple growths per year, such as _C. aclandiae_ .
Sorry - no - I am not a big species guy. I have some and really like a few but I am not into them too much. I do have a C. pumila that I grew from seed that I entered into a competition one year and it won an award. When I entered the next year, the judges said that it was not a C. pumila, since it had so many flowers on it. That plant was also variegated since it was from a selfed plant and I think that it had some recessives come out. Anyway, that got me on the wrong side of growing species. I had one that was vigorous that was the standout in the lot and then judges thought the plant was mislabelled.I do have an aclandiae that has not yet bloomed for me yet. And, I do have a lueddemanniana that was awarded an FCC - I was surprised that plant was not disqualified too because the flowers were so large.... Wow - you got me going.....
Good morning, I agree with you. I have no patience to wait and wait. I want action. Thank you for your video. Great stuff.😊😊
Thanks for your comment - yeah, I want action too!! I am glad you enjoyed this video.
Great video. My ideal orchid...Vigorous, compact, early bloomer, fragrant, and if possible interesting flowers. Did I say fragrant? Definitely want fragrance. Keep up the good work.
Yeah - thanks - fragrance is very high up on my list. I will not use a flower in my crosses, unless it is fragrant. But, unfortunately, breeding for fragrance in orchids is supposed to be tough. I have had different flowers from the same seed capsule, which have different fragrances - they are fragrant but different....
I can wait. I love to watch the orchids grow and then eventually flower. Thanks for the video.
I will try to share the blooms as they come. But, I might miss a few during my travels away from Florida.... Hopefully, I will catch the end of the first blooms on two of my dens that are just about ready to open.
Orchid hybridizing is a patient person's hobby for sure. Some genera are very fast, I've gotten Mormodes and Galendra to bloom in the first year of growth, others test your patience. Sadly orchids within Laeliinae tend to be fairly slow to first bloom. The quickest I've had were probably Caularthron, which bloomed in the second year. The good thing is that once you get the first few years without blooms behind you, if you make a few crosses every year, you'll start getting multiple first blooms every year.
Unfortunately, I am not as patient as I need to be. I want fast flowers and have been getting that with some of my crosses. I think that I can use my fast blooming Cattleyas and Dendrobiums in crosses to get faster flowering of future hybrids. Thanks for your comment and Happy New Year!!
Yes the whole point is to see the beautiful flower. 6 years is too long for me. Loved your video!
6 years is too long - and now I know that you can get orchid flowers much faster with some of the new hybrids. I do not want to sacrifice speed for nice flowers and will find some nice flowers that are Alsop fast....
Oh, but the anticipation!! Hahaha.. 6 years and I think that's pretty much gone. And expectations may be too high.
@@LauraStansfield-tw7xb I have seen images of the flower on OrchidRoots - it's and old hybrid and not that nice.....
@ 😂
Great info! I knew to pick vigorous plants to cross with, but good to know about picking out the best growing early in flask… though I think I’m still in the keep everything phase of flasking. That might change swiftly as I run out of space… your burlap phals are looking good! I wanted to make some crosses with Phal equestris, all the crossed I’ve seen look spectacular with lots of branching, but my equestris and equestris hybrids grow soooo slow :-/ As soon as you picked up the Dendrobium I Jews it was a Woo Leng hybrid ha.
I do like using Woo Leng since it is always flowering! I put another woo Leng hybrid in flasks yesterday. So many seedlings!!…
Hello from Portugal 🎉
Hello back to you - thanks for watching and for your comment!
I got a blc maikai cutting and it bloomed after a few months and I got cutting which is growing a lot but no flowers. It can be quite frustrating sometimes 😂
Maikai should be Bsn. Maikai. People still use Blc. and Bc. but it was reclassified due to more complete genetics info. Yeah, sometimes, divisions can take a while to flower - plants have to reestablish and get big - not so much with the new hybrids but I agree, it can be frustrating. Thanks for your comment!!
Thank you for sharing
Happy to share. Yeah, I’m not as patient as I should be with my flowers. But, if a plant is not going to flower quickly, it will be replaced with one that will….,
That palm tree is a Happy Place for orchids, the growth results indicate. Those other Phal's may start spiking with the cooler Florida winter temps yet to come.
Always hoping for more flowers. Do you have any of these NoID Phals? Paxon’s has 2 in spike. He found another.
@ unfortunately I killed the ones you gave me
@@williamgorski4405 😯😖😥
I'm not in a rush to see flowers on my orchids and currently caring for from such an unpredictably hot, humid, rainy this summer then dry and cold snaps this winter. I wish Mother Nature would make up her mind in 2025. In general, I am culling my collection this year to fewer and physically smaller orchids where I have time to appreciate what I have.
Thanks for your comment - I do know a lot of people that have gone to growing smaller stature orchids. When I see some of the huge orchids that my colleagues grow, I just roll my eyes because I do not have the space. I know others who have gone so far that they are growing only miniatures. I think those are just too small. I have seen many growers who are stocking smaller plants with slightly smaller flowers. For me, there is nothing like a large flower but I try to get those on slightly smaller plants, which I think means faster blooms.
I agree that Mother Nature is fickle - wish that I had a greenhouse but my space and budget are both quite small...
Who knows. Maybe now that its going to flower, i would wait until next flowering season. Because it could be that now it will flower regularly for you.
But yeah.. thats a tough call. And i imagine your expectations will be much too high after such a long time of efforts.
Nice video
It is a white flower with a yellow throat. There are similar or nicer flowers on some of the newer hybrids that I know will flower way earlier. White Reception and Pastoral are examples but I imagine that there are some newer ones that are even nicer. AND to top it off, white is not an orchid flower color that I even like!!.
I have about four different plants that won't bloom.. and I'm talking about over 6 years! I do everything that works for the others, including moving them seasonally to get varying degrees of light. They have lovely foliage, healthy roots with vigorous growth but still absolutely nothing..! I wish there was a way I could identify this trait before I buy because I definitely don't want any more
This sounds a lot like the plant that I show - I think that it was growing well for the vendor and they kept on dividing and selling them. I do try to stay away from the older hybrids, although some of them are favorites because they do so well. I think that the only option is to just get rid of the plants that do not bloom well under your conditions. One viewer commented that my plant may now bloom more often since it has reached a critical stage. But, I am not willing to give this plant any more chances - I should have tossed it a few years ago... Thanks for your comment!!
@plantpropagator I agree! I intend to just place them somewhere in the garden where they'll increase humidity for the other plants and forget about them! At least they'll be useful..😄😄😄
IMO with the observations over time and my experiences, is it’s not so much care but source. As you stated you select the most vigorous seedlings when replating, which is good and vigor is highly important . My experience with divisions is fairly lengthy and most if not all regardless of species are set back in growth which affects bloom frequency . The act of dividing a plant negatively affects it and the lost time is magnified when compared to a seedling which is eagerly growing . In the wild younger plants are the most vigorous and many old species are spent in reproductive activity , thus infrequency of bloom some lack of vigor.
I see your point - I know that dividing an orchid can slow it down. But, I have seen very vigorous divisions that are minimally affected and growth resumes quickly. I do think that there is a genetic base to vigor and fast flowering - these are certainly influenced by environment and conditions - this is called "genotype by environment interactions" in the scientific literature. I also think that vigor can be determined early in the life of an orchid. I do not agree that older plants are spent later in their life (like people?) since you can take a division and rejuvenate plants and I have seen some huge plants that just flower like crazy. Old hybrids - maybe; old plants can be rejuvenated (if they are not virus infested). But, I am still learning about orchids and am happy to consider other ideas and change my mind.....
As always, thanks for your comment.
@ yes I think cultivated plants have a bit more vigor than say a wild one. I keep thinking of how species plants fare in the wild and what conditions they endure. Case in point in a SVKL video of his adventure and outstanding trip to Brazil you see some clumps of orchids with new growths and old deceased growths . Patches are here and there mostly small to medium size and have an equal amount of of dried up growths and new activity which is flowering . The stark difference in care from home collections to this is amazing . Obviously home collections are different and each species is also different in adapting but one constant remains, that is the newest growth produces flower and older passive pseudobulbs will not . In a division are you receiving a new shoot division or old passive . If old and passive then they are slow to revive. New growth divisions are more vigorous and will flower sooner than an old piece of a division
And another case in point: I had a very large clump of BC Rustic Spots which I divided . Probably had 4-5 new growth points which all did very well and didn’t seem to slow down but the older parts of the division were extremely slow to revive, some didn’t revive at all. Seems the newest growth was a factor … just an observation
@@seanhorgan288 Many orchid plants in the wild can put on a show but most are just barely hanging on. They are just attached to trees with their roots, in an environment where nothing else grows, only relying on rain water and whatever nutrients are dropped onto their roots. They are tough but also struggle to survive. In our collections, they are pampered. Maybe, we could take a lesson from nature? Well - maybe not....
@@seanhorgan288 I ran a tissue culture lab for many years, working on plants that were difficult to propagate. It was clear and the general idea was to take the youngest tissue for propagation as this was the most manipulable tissue that was available to achieve propagation. You can use the older parts of some plants. For orchids, once you get the dormant eyes to break, that new tissue is young again and you should be able to move it forward. That was a great and important observation.
At what point can you say an empty sheath is not going to produce a spike? Also, re sheaths that dry, will they ever grow a spike?
I am sorry but I do not have a good answer for you on empty sheaths. I have had sheaths that seemed empty but the flowers were buried in the pseudobulb. I have had some flowers that came out of the pseudobulb and there was no sheath. Some orchids bloom periodically, after the pseudobulb emerges while many bloom the same month of the year from all the pseudobulbs that formed over the previous year. If you have a sheath that has not produced a flower in a full year, you may not get anything from that sheath. I am sorry that I do not have a more precise answer.Thanks for watching my video and for your comment.
In the end, we’re all just really old hybrids. 😂
Message heard.
😆Wish I were as clever as you. I try but....
Unlikely, then, that you will specialize in something like _Laelia speciosa_ , which is notorious for taking many years to reach maturity. Also, the desire to see multiple blooms per year is why growers like the species that can send out multiple growths per year, such as _C. aclandiae_ .
Sorry - no - I am not a big species guy. I have some and really like a few but I am not into them too much. I do have a C. pumila that I grew from seed that I entered into a competition one year and it won an award. When I entered the next year, the judges said that it was not a C. pumila, since it had so many flowers on it. That plant was also variegated since it was from a selfed plant and I think that it had some recessives come out. Anyway, that got me on the wrong side of growing species. I had one that was vigorous that was the standout in the lot and then judges thought the plant was mislabelled.I do have an aclandiae that has not yet bloomed for me yet. And, I do have a lueddemanniana that was awarded an FCC - I was surprised that plant was not disqualified too because the flowers were so large.... Wow - you got me going.....