Pleione season starting in Pacific Northwest 2015

[haika]

Just a couple weekends ago, I checked my overwintering Pleiones in the garage and found that several had advanced floral shoots and the beginnings of this years roots.....so it was repotting time. Some years I just leave them in the same compost but this year I renewed 80% of the pots and top dressed with lawn moss, which has worked well for me in the past. Here is P. Katmai which I got last year from The Gardens at Post Hill.

[haika]

And a brand new Pleione I received this year from an ebay seller in Oregon back in January: P. Vesuvius (no grex name). We'll see if this differs from the other P. Vesuvius plants I've got (named).

[Leafmite]

They look great! I am really looking forward to seeing all of your blooms! This post really was helpful as I am still new with them. Now I understand that what I see growing is the new flowers.
I just took mine from the fridge last week and was relieved to see that they had all survived. I potted them together in a tray with new mix (I was careful to put the tags with the bulbs) and put them under the lights. I was a little worried but they are all getting green growths. I admit, I think I am hooked.

[reliablefool]

I recently purchased some pleione and I'm curious as to what mix you pot in. I think my mix of charcoal, sphag, bark, and perlite might be too open.

[Leafmite]

A really great website:

The Pleione Website - The Pleione Website Homepage

What you use will depend on your climate, what sort of pot you use and how much you love to water. I asked Wayne Roberts of Roberts Flower Supply as he sold me three of them and he recommended a seedling mix. I chose a Dendrobium seedling mix for mine. He had them in something like that last year and they did quite well. The fourth one, from another vendor, was in something that might have been some sort of moss (?) that dried out very fast and stayed very loose even after a year. No idea what it was, though.
People grow them in all sorts of mediums, however. It just depends on your growing conditions.

[reliablefool]

Thanks for the response and the website. I'm scared to water them since everything I've read says you shouldn't be watering them this early, but they're starting to shrivel. I have new growths starting (buds I think), but nothing else is really happening that I can see...and the buds have stalled.

[Leafmite]

Don't water them until they put out roots. They can't use the water without roots, anyway, and will just rot. Once you see roots, you can begin to water. I was told this by the vendor who sold me my first one.

[haika]

The previous season's pseudobulb will shrivel to nothing while 'feeding' the new growths so that's not something to worry about. The growth cycle isn't like Lycaste or most other sympodial orchids. I grow mine outside during the growth period (in a covered patio area that gets water through the upstairs deck) and they are getting spring rains while initiating new roots. In the spring, it's all about temperature. Last spring we had a heat wave up to 80F which is very ususual for the Seattle area, so I was snatching the Pleione trays back inside where my heat pump kept the ambient temp in the 60's. Otherwise I was risking rot as the roots were just beginning to grow. Right now it's between 40-65F or so. If it wasn't raining, I'd be putting the pots in water saucers to allow moisture to start wicking up into the pots. All of my comments regard the spring blooming Pleiones as I've had poor luck with the fall-winter blooming varieties. Attached a photo taken yesterday afternoon showing how far the floral shoots have developed since repotting and bringing them out of the garage. The big orchid to the right is a hardy Calanthe.

[haika]

Here's what the new roots look like on the new spring growth of a Pleione Tongariro (2014). Moss top dressing pushed aside.