courses in horticulture and orchids

As winter draws in I’ve been thinking about fertilising orchids. Standard orchid growing wisdom is to cut down or cease fertiliser applications as the weather starts to cool down. If you do so, how does this affect all those orchids that grow in the cooler months? I’m thinking specifically of reedstem Epidendrums and Oerstedellas for which I have a particularly soft spot, Cymbidiums, Phalaenopsis, Sobralias and that spectacular species Oncidium sphacelatum.

Epidendrums and Oerstedellas mostly start growing for me, here in Southeast Queensland, in January, grow through to June or July and start flowering from their recently matured growths. I’ve found they are gross feeders and I use weekly applications of liquid fertiliser as well as slow release pellets on pot surfaces, replenished six-monthly. As I write this in the first week of May, the last couple of morning temperatures have been down to 9˚C and they will go lower yet. If I don’t feed these genera regularly up to flowering time I will get weak, spindly growths producing small flower heads with small flowers. If you must reduce fertiliser applications, do so whilst they are in flower through Spring up to Christmas.

Cymbidiums, Phalaenopsis and Sobralias hardly rest. They may pause for a week or two whilst flowering but most have active roots within their containers. Regular fertilising helps them to produce strong growths (or leaves in the case of Phalaenopsis) with bountiful flowering. Sobralias flower through the Summer but produce new growths throughout the year. They love being fed and will reward you with large, brilliant flowers.

Oncidium sphacelatum flowers for me in October – November on recently matured pseudobulbs. I took a careful note last year as my plant is building up into a nice specimen. After I removed the spent flower stems the plant had a rest until mid March when new shoots started to grow. They are about half mature in early May and will take another three months to plump up to flowering size, initiating flower stems in September. If I don’t keep the fertiliser up to them through winter I won’t get strong new pseudobulbs and a spectacular flowering in late Spring.

At last we have some proper autumn weather with warm days and cooler nights. If, like me, you grow your Phalaenopsis outdoors during the warm months, you’ll find that the drop in temperature with an increasing differential between daytime and nighttime temperatures will help them to initiate flower stems soon.

Here are a couple of photos of Phalaenopsis grown by an Indonesian orchid grower which show some promise of good things to come.

This is a small grower with Phal. equestris and Phal. stuartiana in its background. The grower had not registered it when we saw it 12 months ago.

Cooler temperatures will slow down Phalaenopsis leaf and root growth. I’ve noted that once a flower stem shows, it takes about 6 weeks for the first flower to open. Stems that show in the first two weeks of April will open their first flowers towards the end of May. I bring my Phallies inside then as cool, wet weather will cause flowers to spot. Besides, they make such lovely indoor decorations and their flowers last up to three months. By the time their flowers have finished it’s nearly time to put them outside again. No wonder that Phalaenopsis are the world’s most popular indoor flowering plant.

This lovely flower is a form of the species Phalaenopsis violacea from Mentawi Island. It has a larger than normal flower with a distinct bluish caste in real life. It holds a lot of promise as a parent of blue flowered hybrids.

Going over the first Unit in our Certificate II in Orchid Growing course recently, I looked with fresh eyes at the illustration of Dendrobium bigibbum which we use in the course to explain orchid nomenclature. It’s the time of year when this glorious orchid, Queensland’s floral emblem, is in flower. Here is an example, growing on the rough-barked tree Tabebuia chrysantha.

As an epiphyte in nature Den. bigibbum grows well on native trees such as Callistemon and Casuarina species and on commonly found garden favourites such as Citrus and Plumeria (Frangipani). Orchid nurseries stocking Australian native orchid hybrids can usually supply good plants of Den. bigibbum raised from seed and line-bred to produce larger flowers on easier to grow plants than those found in the wild. Remember, it is illegal to collect native orchids in the wild. Nursery-raised plants of the same species are cheap, plentiful and grow better in your garden.

We are delighted that Jacqui and Garry Watts have opened their nursery, WOW Orchids, at Bemm River in far eastern Victoria. Jacqui was one of our early students and successfully completed two of our orchid growing courses before taking the step from orchid growing to setting up and operating an orchid nursery. We wish them every success. Do check their website and see Garry’s excellent photographs.

One of our students, Steven Aiello, who completed Certificate III in Horticulture with us last year, is in charge of the planting, care and maintenance of the annual Tulip Time display for Wingecarribee Shire Council. Here are some of Steven’s photos of this year’s display — the 50th Tulip Time. Congratulations Steven for this fabulous result achieved by your hard work, dedication and knowledge. We are proud to have had you as our student.

[Show as slideshow]

We no longer offer our short courses in various aspects of orchid growing. Instead, we are concentrating on our nationally recognised courses accredited under the Australian Quality Training Framework as Certificates II and III in Orchid Growing. These courses, which we offer by Distance learning, contain a number of units that include the information contained in the short courses. Students who complete a course receive a nationally recognised qualification just as if they had studied the course at a TAFE college. If you wish to study a particular aspect of orchid growing without completing the full course you can enroll just to study one or two units, pay a ʻpro rataʼ fee and receive a Certificate of Attainment on successful completion. Contact us for further information.

A new orchid grower recently called me for advice about his orchids. He said he couldnʼt afford to pay for a course but then said he had spent over $1,000 on Cymbidium hybrids with which he was having trouble. Unfortunately for him, he bought unsuitable Cymbidiums even though he lives in the coastal subtropics north of Brisbane. They picked up bacterial rots in the summer heat and humidity and he didnʼt know what to do.

Iʼve had the same sort of enquiry from would-be growers who wanted to grow Ascocendas and Vandas in their gardens even though their winter temperatures dropped to -10C.

Regrettably, this gorgeous Thai Ascocenda wonʼt grow in cold temperatures. It needs a minimum of 15C and lots of sunshine to flower to its potential. But when it does, what a fabulous decorative cut flower producer it is.

Notice the flat flower profile that makes packing for shipment easy. Easy, too, to use the flower for corsage work or even as a boutonniere.

Penny wise, pound foolish. Surely itʼs better to pay some course fees to find out what you can grow where you live and how to grow it, rather than buying expensive orchids only to find that they wonʼt grow well in your climate.

Another enquirer sought my advice about breeding Cymbidiums. That person didnʼt know the difference between tetraploids and diploids, nor that triploid Cymbids are usually sterile. Not much point in considering breeding until you can grow both the proposed parents and seedlings reasonably well and you have a good
understanding of what you are trying to achieve in your breeding program.

Even breeding the best with the best wonʼt necessarily give you a good result. Breeding “ho-hum” orchids with each other gives you more of the same. So be prepared to buy the best parents if you intend to breed and be aware that they might be out of fashion or superseded by the time you get their progeny in flask.

When I recently repotted several lithophytic Laelia species which I obtained potted in perlite, most of their roots were dead. I wondered about perlite toxicity but, because perlite is sterile when produced and has a neutral pH, it shouldnʼt cause toxicity itself. However, its moisture-holding property can cause it to hold liquid fertiliser which will precipitate toxic salts eventually. I suspect that we shouldnʼt leave plants potted in straight perlite for more than 12 months before repotting into fresh material. No matter how much pure water you
pour on, how can you be sure youʼve leached out all the old fertiliser from perlite in a pot?

An d y Ph i l l i p s o f En c i n i t a s , California, grows most species orchids to perfection. This lithophytic Laelia lilliputiana which he has attached to a rock is no exception. As it does in nature, its roots will creep over the rock surface, drying rapidly after watering so root rot wonʼt be a problem.

In March we potted up the first seedlings from Epidendrum (veroscriptum x barbeyanum) out of flask. Thatʼs the green flowered Epi pictured in the June 2009 News item. The cross weʼve deflasked is with Epi. Topaz Gem ʻWhite Lip”, an amethyst coloured reedstem. The seedlings are like the pod parent in growth with rounder, softer leaves than straight reedstem types. Some seedlings have pure green leaves and some have a trace of anthocyanin, suggesting the flowers will have some purple.

We canʼt speculate on what the flowers will be like but wouldnʼt it be great if they were bicolor green and amethyst? The pod parent flowers whilst small and probably wonʼt grow taller than 30 cm. These seedlings might be great compact pot plants but our hope is that they will produce fertile seed so we can use them with further reedstem crosses to get the colour green into ʻcrucifixʼ orchids.

Just going back to what you can grow where you live, there are a legion of cool and intermediate climate orchids, both species and hybrids, that you can grow in cooler regions. Some you can grow in your garden whilst others may need a modicum of protection if you have wet and cold winters. You probably have a wider range of orchids that will grow for you in cooler regions than those of us orchid growers in the tropics and subtropics.

Hereʼs a Vanda coerulea, raised in a Thai nursery. Coming from high altitude where frosts sometimes occur in its natural home, this species is a much better bet to grow in cooler climates.

Winter is well and truly with us here in the Southern Hemisphere. It’s been cold and one forecast we heard is that the coldest days will be from the last week of July to the first week of August. One step we can take to protect orchids and other plants we think might suffer in cold snaps is to spray them with an antitranspirant. This puts a resin-like coating on the plant which helps to stave off chilly temperatures. The coating will last up to three weeks unless rain or frequent watering washes it off sooner. This isn’t the weather for frequent watering. Two readily available antitranspirants are Envy® and the Yates product Stressguard®.

We use an antitranspirant spray over newly deflasked, potted up seedlings. It helps them cope with the big wide world after leaving the warm, humid, sheltered life in the flask. In our nurserying days some growers dipped all seedlings, roots and all, into a bowl of antitranspirant before potting up. We found this inhibited root growth, as though the new soft seedling roots were just not strong enough to grow through the antitranspirant coating, so we didn’t follow that practice.

Just to remind us of glorious orchids that come into bloom in cold weather, here is Epidendrum schomburgkii (syn. E. macrocarpum) which will be open for us in the first week of August. It’s a strong, sturdy grower with 6 cm flowers that open into a lovely head. We’ve pictured it before but watch for some of its progeny in the next year or so.

We thought we would include this picture to warm us up on a cold, wet afternoon. This is a bed of Kagawaras and Mokaras at the famous Rose Garden Hotel just south of Bangkok. In Thailand they are virtually ever-blooming and form the basis for that country’s cutflower trade — straight stems that are easy to pack, heavy substance, colourful blooms. Pity they won’t grow so freely outside in the garden here at Nerang. 

The season for Winter Shows is with us. It is really worthwhile attending whatever shows you can in your area. As well as the tried and proven show winners we saw last year there is always a gem being exhibited for the first time. Maybe it’s in the section for seedlings flowering for the first time, maybe it’s a species we haven’t seen before or maybe it’s a show winner that a canny exhibitor has been keeping hidden until he or she has mericlones available.

Back in pre-decimal days in the early 1960s the biggest orchid nursery in Sydney was Dos Pueblos, at Dee Why where York Meredith grew thousands of Cymbidiums for the then-thriving cutflower export market as well as for the show bench. Many of these were bred in California either by Stewarts Orchids or by the parent Dos Pueblos Company. In those days the NSW Orchid Society held its Spring Show in Sydney Town Hall. What a sight it was, filled almost to bursting point with wonderful orchids.

In this particular year Dos Pueblos won several Show trophies with a beautiful full-shaped green Cymbidium San Francisco with the clonal name ‘Dos Pueblos’. Every Cymbidium grower and most members of the public who saw it wanted a piece. York had actually flowered C. San Francisco ‘Dos Pueblos’ a couple of years earlier, saw how good it was, kept it ‘under wraps’ and had it mericloned — then a very new process. He sold several hundred mericlones in 6” pots at a very healthy profit. So, remember to write down the name of that orchid gem you see at the Show and ask if it is available. The canny grower might already have had it mericloned, just like York all those years ago.

Micholitz, Burke, Forstermann, Lobb, Roebelin, Wallis, the incomparable Roezl…..the old-time orchid hunters were intrepid explorers, often walking over country no Westerner had seen. Hugh Low wrote of collecting the spectacular species that bears his name, Dimorphorchid lowii, by canoe in the flooded swamps and creeks of Borneo. Even he would have thought twice about searching the tree in this picture for epiphytes.

No, it’s not Borneo but a flood plain in Australia’s own Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory where Lili and I recently spent a few days escaping the cold. We were amazed at the number and size of the crocodiles in the wild and their apparent disregard for human visitors. The biggest one we saw in the wild was over four metres with a girth like a well-fed horse. Maybe that croc had fed well on a horse! Despite lots of tasty barramundi, fishing those waters in a ‘tinnie’ held no appeal to us.

We hadn’t been to Darwin before and thoroughly enjoyed our break there. Fabulous food, friendly people, majestic scenery and lovely warm weather. We will be fascinated to see what the on-going interaction between crocodiles and humans will be because there sure are lots of the former.

Another lovely genus that flowers principally in autumn and winter is Oncidium. It’s easy to see where the common name ‘Dancing Lady’ comes from. This is a hybrid bred from Oncidium varicosum, a Brazilian species originally found in the mountains near Rio. We find the trick to growing this type of Oncidium successfully is to ensure their roots are never covered by potting media. We grow them on living trees, especially frangipani (on which this one is growing) and bottlebrush which they seem to love. They are quite happy with cold winters and can never get waterlogged or suffer from ‘wet feet’ when established on a tree.

Our AQTF nationally recognised courses in Horticulture are proving popular in the present economic situation. We are pleased with all our students’ progress. Several are employed by nurseries and their employers are taking a keen interest in the courses. Providing training by Distance Learning has its advantages, not the least of which is that students can study in their own time without disruption to their employment. Our short courses in orchid growing subjects continue to attract a lot of interest and Fifty Plus Lifestyle, a New South Wales magazine, will be publishing an article about The Orchid Academy and a review of my book Orchids in Your Garden later this month.

If you haven’t already done so, may we suggest you subscribe to The Australian Orchid Review. You will get up to date information about orchids, a whole section called ‘Cymbidiums Australia’ presented by the Australian Cymbidium Society Inc. and a comprehensive list of Show dates State by State to enable you to plan your Show visits well ahead of time.

Until next time, enjoy the winter orchid shows and happy orchid growing from Lili and Robert.

As I write this item we have had the first cold snap of this winter. Orchids growing in the garden or under shadecloth in Southeast Queensland which have been basking in early morning temperatures of 9 or 10C have been exposed suddenly to near-freezing temperatures. What help do they need and what help can we give them if we can’t move them into protected positions under shelter?

The simplest and easiest measure is to give them a protective overcoat by spraying them with an antitranspirant such as Envy® or Stressguard® made up to the manufacturer’s recommended strength. Spray to cover all exposed parts of the whole plant including both sides of leaves and all bulbs or stems but excluding roots. Antitranspirants put a protective covering on sprayed surfaces that lasts for two to three weeks, depending on the amount of water you apply subsequently. In winter you will be watering less frequently so, unless we get heavy rain (which usually does not come with extremely low temperatures) the antitranspirant you apply should remain effective for closer to three weeks than two.

We have found it better not to spray exposed roots of orchids growing on trees, rocks and mounts as an antitranspirant coating prevents roots from absorbing moisture which condenses each cool night and provides orchids’ main water supply during winters in nature. Of course, we don’t grow Phalaenopsis and other warmth lovers outside in winter but it’s amazing how many orchid genera including Cymbidiums, Epidendrums, Oncidiums, Sarcochilus and many native Dendrobiums and their hybrids, revel in winter’s cool temperatures, dews and mists. Try some in your garden — you may be surprised at how well they grow.

A fairly recent and cheap addition to potting mixes is milled coconut husk or coconut peat. It is a by-product from coir manufacture but is produced without the former practice of ‘retting’ coir in salt water lagoons. Good quality coconut peat resembles its namesake sphagnum peat in appearance although it contains more fibrous material than the latter. It should be guaranteed by the manufacturer or importer to have an EC reading of .5 to ensure it doesn’t contain excess harmful salts and a pH of between 5.5 and 6.5. That pH level makes it ideal for most orchids and plants that prefer a slightly lower pH than neutral.

We’ve deflasked Epidendrum seedlings straight into coconut peat and they are doing very well so far. It is certainly very easy to use once you have soaked it for an hour or so and broken up any lumps into a fluffy consistency. Ensure that you wear a dust mask and gloves when handling dry coconut peat because it can be a bit dusty and prickly. It seems to retain air space between particles if you pot firmly but without ramming it down hard. If you are worried that it may be too dense for epiphytes, try mixing it with chopped coconut husk — coarse, medium or fine grade — or with your favourite grade of perlite.

Slow release fertilisers are suitable to use with coconut peat. For orchids, use slow release fertilisers sparingly and cover with 1 cm of peat to stop the granules washing out of the pot or dumping the contents when exposed to sunlight. In summary, coconut peat is a cheap and welcome addition to the potting media available to pot plant growers and orchid lovers in particular.