Sarcochilus (ceciliae) care

[SouthPark]

Originally Posted by neophyte

Thanks! Also, what temps are you keeping your S. ceciliae at? Some websites say it's a cool grower; others same cool to intermediate... I really hope I can keep this little one alive!

Most welcome neo. During the 'winter' time here - in my tropical area ---- the average might be say 13 degrees C. Some nights can get lower ----- but no problem for the ceciliae. During the hot times of the year --- we can get up to 40 deg C or a bit more ...... which doesn't happen all that often. Some site reckons that the temperature shouldn't exceed 34 degrees C.

But what I can say is ----- I've had summer morning sun blazing down directly on these plants - and it really does get quite warm here, and they handle it easily. They can be pretty tough actually. What I do here is --- I water early in the morning heavily the outskirts of the pot (my scoria filled pot) --- and I only spray ever so slightly --- a very very tiny bit of water to just ever so slightly wet the roots closer up to the orchid. And they just do fine. Even small baby ones do well in the direct morning sun here. They just grow little chubby roots - which just get longer and longer, working their way out - or even down into the scoria.

I also grow Sarco. roseus --- which people once placed into the Sarco. ceciliae category ..... calling it var. roseus. But it turns out that Sarco. roseus has a couple of unmistakably different features --- one of them being the lip. The ceciliae has a couple of gaps toward each side at the front of the lip - giving the impression of incisors. The roseus doesn't have that ----- so roseus has a lip that is more like a slipper orchid. But pretty much the same growing conditions as for ceciliae.

[neophyte]

Thanks! I'll stop worrying so much; seems like they can probably handle my conditions.

One of the lower leaves seems like it's beginning to yellow a bit; hopefully it'll just be that one. I'm writing it off as stress from the export process for now...

[neophyte]

Welllllll I had it potted very shallow in scoria. Then all the roots rotted.

There is one teeny tiny root that is still growing. I think the kelp extract worked but then all the little root nubs that were starting out died (due to rot, I guess). So now I'm kind of at a loss as to what I should do, since on one hand it seems it is very prone to rot, but then on the other hand it is very dehydrated...

[estación seca]

The root nubs probably died because they dried out. These need a lot of water. A commercial Sarco hybrid grower from Australia spoke to our society. They use a mix of perlite, bean bag chair stuffing, rock wool strands and one more non-organic thing I can't remember. They use different sizes for different ages of plants, but particles are always much smaller than people might use for similarly sized Phals or Catts. They water and fertilize every day of the year. He said they should never dry out.

Fred Clark sells near-flowering-size Sarco hybrids in seedling bark with a little small perlite. I left mine in the pot from Fred and it's growing well. I'm by no means a Sarco expert but based on what I've seen and been told I would not use medium nor large chunk anything for Sarcos.

[Roberta]

For what it's worth... if you lose it, Sarco ceciliae is listed on the Santa Barbara Orchid Estate website (don't know how current they keep it, I did get one from there.. alas no longer have it but it did well for several years). Andy's Orchids doesn't list any Sarcochilus, but he may have it, website only lists about 10-15% of the species that he has available.

[SouthPark]

Originally Posted by neophyte

Welllllll I had it potted very shallow in scoria. Then all the roots rotted.

There is one teeny tiny root that is still growing. I think the kelp extract worked but then all the little root nubs that were starting out died (due to rot, I guess). So now I'm kind of at a loss as to what I should do, since on one hand it seems it is very prone to rot, but then on the other hand it is very dehydrated...

Neo ------ check this link too (click here).

Upping the humidity near the roots will help a lot. In my part of the world - ceciliae and roseus are growing in the wild here ----- so it makes my task of keeping them alive a bit easier. But I still attempt to provide the humidity near the roots without drowning the roots.

But I have also found what us orchid growers have known for a while now - about roots growing into wetter regions. If they have enough time to slowly grow into wetter regions (such as toward the outskirts/rim area of the pot, where I dump the bulk or even all of my water) ------- the roots tend to have no or less issue. So that feature of adapting or adaptability gets noticed sometimes.

[neophyte]

Hmmm, so now I'm confused... it is supposed to be kept moist, but it also rots easily?

Maybe I'm using the word scoria wrong... it's very porous volcanic rock but the pieces are quite small; it's not super chunky.

[SouthPark]

Apologies! I need to clarify ------- I tend to use big deep pots. Really big is no problem - although - naturally, the bigger the pot is, the more wasteful the media can be heheh ----- but certainly there can be ways to compensate - such as surrounding edges etc with spaghnum moss.

But - for my big deep pots (of scoria) - I water heavily around the outskirts - toward the rim of the pot. This loads up the scoria with a heap of water and (I think) generates humidity in and around the whole pot (even toward the centre) all day. This is just a method of growing orchids in my region. There will be a whole range of options ----- and even tweaks that other growers can do too - such as whether they want to add some water, or no water toward the centre of the pot. Once they get their own working system going - and maintaining it ----- things will become smooth sailing.

[neophyte]

At this stage, what do you think would be the best thing to do? I guess I'm just confused because the consensus is to keep it moist and humid, which makes sense, but I have been keeping the roots moist at all times and they have started to rot... maybe the rotting was already starting during the shipment process and I didn't notice.

[estación seca]

Go to Sunset Valley Orchids and read the growing information. Do what it says. He recommends medium bark, but his seedlings ship in seedling bark.