Habineria: Where are we going wrong?

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

What are the numerical values for the temperature (please note the night and day temperatures please - not to mention the seasonal temperatures) and humidity?

What's the watering regimen?

Were the leaves misted or not? If so, how often was it done?

What kind of pot did you use? Plastic? Terra cotta?

Did you guys know that this was a terrestrial orchid and not an epiphytical one?

Did you know that this plant goes deciduous and becomes dormant?

I need to know what you guys know in order to help you.


Habenaria form "root tubers" or more correctly termed tuberous roots. So yes, this plant does make roots.

The growth cycle goes like this:

1. Dormant tuberous root.

2. Dormant tuberous root grows a shoot.

3. Shoot turns into leaves and grows more leaves.

4. After the shoot gets to be a certain size, roots grow out.

5. Once the shoot matures, it may or may not throw out an inflorescence.

6. Regardless of whether or not the plant throws out an inflorescence, each root will form a tuberous growth.

7. When the temperatures cool down, the shoot starts to slowly die back, while the tuberous roots reach the size they will become during dormancy.

8. Shoot completely dies off, while the old tuberous root dies off as well.

9. New tuberous roots are left behind and are dormant.


And the cycle continues.

[David1985]

Originally Posted by King_of_orchid_growing:)

What are the numerical values for the temperature (please note the night and day temperatures please - not to mention the seasonal temperatures) and humidity?

So far the temperature has been in the mid to high 20s C with high humidity.

What's the watering regimen?

Once a week misting, same as before when it was growing fine.

Were the leaves misted or not? If so, how often was it done?

No.

What kind of pot did you use? Plastic? Terra cotta?

It was in the plastic one it came in.

Did you guys know that this was a terrestrial orchid and not an epiphytical one?

It's growing in what the grower grew it in--this guy

Did you know that this plant goes deciduous and becomes dormant?

He did explain that when we bought it. And it did that and was coming back. The tuber got bigger than what we started with and it was coming up nicely.

They should start to be watered towards the middle of spring. And watering should end when the temperatures either go below 60 F at night or sometime during early to mid fall.

When it gets to be fall, this advice will be helpful. Right now we're fantasizing about going below 60 F. It was moistened slightly during the winter (kept inside) to keep it from drying out, and as I said before it came back quite happily. It's only recently that it decided to start drooping.

[quote]Your Habenaria medusae may have a certain sensitivity to not being grown terrestrially like it should've been grown.

This is due to the fact that many different species of terrestrial orchids tend to have differing levels of affinity to their symbiotic partners - mycorrhizal fungi.[quote]

Define terrestrial.

We're growing it the same way we got it, from a professional grower.

I also don't recommend growing any Habenarias in just bark and perlite. Most of them don't even grow that way in the wild.

Then what do you suggest? As I said, that's how we got it, and the grower has been in the business for 30 years.

EDIT: my mother states that it has whiskers on it and isn't that soft; only on the surface. She describes it as feeling like 'a furry potato.'

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