Dendrobium lindleyi

[voyager]

while I still lived in AK, I tried to grow and bloom Den. lindleyi without success.
I used the info from the book 'Orchid Species Culture: Dendrobium' as my guide.

From the book entry's info, I would give my plant a severly dry winter rest.
I set the household night temps to go down to 60*F.
I never was able to get it to bloom.
Plus, it didn't seem to grow all that well.

Much of the problem may have been the short winter days, ~4 hrs at solstice.

I am absolutely dumbfound at how well my present D. lindleyi is doing here in HI.
Humidity runs at about 65% [days] to 100% [nights] with dew every morning.

Winter night low temps are about 60 to 65*F.
The diurnal difference is about 10 to 15*F.
It rains a lot, a very wet winter.
We have received over 8" of rain in just one night, 4:30pm to 9:00am.
Most of the days have been very cloudy.
Yet, my present plant, simply having been thrown outdoors and told to "FLY", is blooming the best I have ever seen it, or any other do.
It has shaken my faith in what the experts say.
A pic from this morning is attached to my last post here:

Yard Orchids '18-03-18 - New Feral Vanda

[Regelian]

Congratulations! I think your plant is getting enough dryness in Winter simply by being outdoors, where there is a breeze. In pot culture the plants dry too slowly to get a real rest, thus the advice to keep them dry. The temperature drop is more important, imo, as this is what actually triggers the rest, not the lack of water.

It is interesting you bring this topic up, as, with seeing so many D. lindleyi blooming currently, and in different environments, I was wondering where the trigger actually lies. I grow most of the species in this section (Densiflora) and have found that moisture in the Winter was only a problem for those kept in the house (the warmest growers, such as D. griffithianum). In the greenhouse, where they dry in 24 hours (mounted or in baskets), the bud set is excellent. The more I learn about their natural habitats, the easier it is to understand that, for most, temp drop is the key to season change. Humidity and dew is throughout the year, thus some moisture is always available. One species, that we have currently in abundant colour variation, D. farmeri, should be grown relatively warm, but mine have done well with nights down to 10°C, generally 14°C. Too cold and the leaves yellow. They need to be kept dryer, of course. That said, the rest seems to be very short, maybe 4 weeks max.

Another plant, purchased as D. palperbrae, which should be a cool grower, would seem to be another form of D. farmeri. It does not like it cool at all! Lost all its leaves and is only now recovering. This makes me believe many plant we receive are incorrectly named. Simply ignorance, or a cunning plan to sell more plants, I'll let others decide, but the confusion does lead to incorrect culture assumptions. When I received this plant my first thought was it looked like D. farmeri; 4-angled p-bulbs instead of clavate-sulcate (like thysiflorum), as reported for D. palperbrae.

I think we are all learning to take culture recomendation with a grain of salt. They tend to refleck previous experiences and may be strongly biased to a particular group of culture rules from a different era. Couple this with the increased geography of orchid collection and propogation of particularly easy strains, ones which have adapted to the particular propogators environment, it is clear that the rules of the game are in flux. OK, I have waffled on long enough.....

Jamie

[No-Pro-mwa]

It's a really nice plant.

[SaraJean]

How lucky to be able to grow things on trees out there! Great job