Fdk after dark black pearl

[sbrofio]

Hi fellows!!
For my birthday I decided to make to myself "some" gifts..
Obviously orchid gifts

One of them is a Fdk After dark Black pearl.
The plant is pretty big, as you can see in the pics.
I read the care instruction in Fred Clarke's site but I have a doubt.
The plant is yellowing (does this verb exist?) the leaves, so I suppose it's enetering in dormancy, but it's making a floreal stem.. so, here the doubt:

Keep watering (a bit less) until at least 2 flowers open or stop watering?

Thank you friends

[DavidCampen]

Don't stop watering yet, it still has green leaves. Reduce watering now but don't stop watering until the last leaf has turned all yellow and brown.

[sbrofio]

Thank you David!

[Lars Kurth]

I agree with David: mine is starting to shed it's lower leaves about now and has buds of your size too. It is pretty normal for many Catasetums to start developing buds when the leaves start yellowing/dropping off.

In my growing environment, the first plants start getting yellowing leaves around now and the last ones tend to drop leaves in December. I tend to reduce watering now. In January-February I hardly water. From March, the first new buds arrive and I can start watering a bit more until the growing season starts again.

[sbrofio]

Thank you for your post Lars, I'll make treasure of them both.

Filippo

[isurus79]

At this stage in the growth cycle, I always stopped watering at this point. You can go either way, but if you have cool temps at night (ie. less than 55F), you should stop watering completely or you run the risk of rot. If your temps are still warmer than this at night, then you can keep watering. Either way, your plant will be completely dormant in few weeks at most. The flowers use energy stored in the bulbs and do not depend on water taken in by the roots, so don't worry about that when deciding whether to water or not.

[catasetum-ian]

ditto and well said Steve.

[Bud]

Steve is right....this plant is quite expensive here comes to a couple of hundreds or I would have owned one....post pictures of the blooms they are quite dark almost black

[sbrofio]

Some news: stem is growing and I suspect a new one is sprouting!
There is only 1 leaf hal green half yellow. Now minimum night temperatures are 15°C (59 °F).. at 12-10°C I'll bring it inside (18-19°C - 66 °F).

[isurus79]

Looks great! Should be a good show!