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Aww perfect capture of the hummingbird!

Hahaha playing with plants is what my family calls what i do now. And 20 year old me would also be disappointed. The beauty in that is...35 year old me does not give a shit. Haha

Whoa! Porphyroglossa is so beautiful!!! I looked it up. Sorry yours isn't so great but hope it improves!

Do the rules for bi foliates apply to hybrids? Not just primary hybrids but maybe even more complex ones??

It's nice to hear someone actually say it's okay to not have a back off of water and winter rest for the cattleyas. I like that you accept that people may be doing things differently.and so true with my experience with cattleyas and my only real experience with the bifoliates. I did kill my orchid very quickly which never happened quite in that fashion like it did when I potted a bi foliate too soon.

I would add braces to every side (2 braces per post). If you manage to make the frame sturdy enough, and braces really add to its strength, you might not even need the steel cable to pull it toward the fence. My orchid shade has rebar-concrete posts, one meter into the ground (for around 3m above the ground). Most of my pots are hanging, and I use crushed stone for a medium, which is quite heavy. Hanging pots are less susceptible to attacks by crawling creatures like snails.

Thank you for a very informative video! Question: What about the unifoliate cattleyas that bloom during winter? My trianae and percivaliana are in bloom now, I can't help but think that blooms consume water from the plant, so maybe the plant needs a drink?

It's really fascinating to see how those roots cling on to those terracotta pots.

gosh darn gravity.

Hope this handles the structural issues for you.

This video is not at all boring. I moved last year and my former home had dappled sunlight at best. Now my new deck is in blazing sun. And I made a huge mistake with all of the busyness nightmare of a long distance move by putting my cattleya into the blistering sun. I had losses on some and a ton of damage to everything else and they are still recovering. So, plan b is a shade house. So thank you!

Good catch! That should stop it from leaning. It just goes to show you that sometimes you need to revamp your set ups. 😊

Thanks for this video. Can the core of the roots when the velamen is gone still take up enough water?

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Very interesting, Stephen. I contemplated of doing this but never went ahead with it. Maybe now I will :) Can't wait for some positive results! How will the ones on the sand get any mycorrhizal fungi?

How do I determine what type of cattleya I have? I just received a Blc. Joao Antonio Nicole 'Velvet' as a freebie recently and there's not much info about it online... It has small pseudobulbs and not very robust roots so I'm inclined to water as needed?

I've recently germinated 8+ species of terrestrial orchids using the cardboard method (some are already growing leaves). If you have some extra seeds I'd be happy to try adapting it for lithophytes or epiphytes, or I could send you some information if you wanted to try that method yourself.

you probably would have been better off taking some sand from the wild and using that to inoculate the rest of the sand. The sugar can be a magnet for a number of unwanted microorganisms and fungi, as almost any bacteria and fungus will happily use glucose as an energy source.

I think there is a lot to learn about epiphytic orchid biology. It's hard to replicate the wild in a lab and may lead to incomplete or incorrect conclusions. Nitrogen fixing biology like asospirilium and microbes like bacillus and psudomonads would help with propagation. I would be weary about leaving the sugar solution around for more than a few days with the organic fertilizer because its probably going to ferment into booze or vinegar. Andy from Andy's orchid talks about using moss from imported orchids that are grown in more natural settings as reserviors of symbiotic organisms.

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I was always thinking why no one trying to propagate with out agar or laboratory. It is really interesting topic even if it don’t work. Just nice to share. Looking forward to see if anything grows. Thanks for sharing 🙏

Interesting topic. I think people like to call the orchid/fungi relationship symbiotic because they don't think of orchids as parasites. But as far as I can tell the orchid seedlings are straight up parasites on the fungus. Now maybe this changes later in the orchid's life, as it starts to grow maybe it offers some benefit to the fungus. But I've never seen anyone show that the orchid actually offers anything to the fungus. Catasetinae are really good examples of how the orchid seedling exploits the fungus as I've seen Catasetum and Mormodes seedlings that were developing behind some bark and grew quite large (over an inch long) without any light. The only way that could happen is if the orchid got all of its energy from the fungus. You might want to add some form of complex carbohydrate, like pulverized leaves or bark to the sand as I don't think mycorrhizal fungi are adapted to sucrose as their carbohydrate source in nature. Though maybe this is a non-issue. The seed look really good. These are actually pretty big as orchid seed go with some being like fine dust. Looking forward to updates on this. Good Luck!

I have tried a similar procedure for epiphyte cattleyas, using tree bark inside plastic containers. I have had some germination on Ficus branch pieces, but the protocorms never passed the first leaf formation stages. I believe the Ficus may have some sugar in it that allows germination, but not enough to sustain the seedling as it grows without the proper mycorrhizal fungus. I have entertained the idea of adding sugar by misting but never tried, afraid it would boost up any old mold and fungus, not only the good ones. I heard that you can use root tips from other orchids to try and make an inoculum of mycorrhizal fungi. Now, you should really try that with Catasetum, that you seem to like! They are by far the easiest ones to germinate ex vitro. Keep us updated on this!

I have only continued to water, because the leaves are lush and green. Is it too late to winterize ? Should i let nature take it at course?

Thanks again Stephen for this type of educational content! Today I just found out that both of my catasetum orchids that I just acquired recently, with a small green growth point on each of them😅 while the last water of them probably about 2-3 weeks ago. Day length has been short (no led light on them, just natural south facing window). Should I wait abit before repotting them? Thank you in advance!

Thank you for this video! I do want to comment, however, that after watching this and immediately going to change the settings on my Kasa "smart" plugs and finding, yet AGAIN that they are offline and can't be controlled, that IME these are probably the worst smart plugs on the market. My husband, a LAN/WAN/WiFi/VoIP/telephony/computer engineer, went with Kasa because he likes TPLink products and has used them for years in home settings. I, however, have found them to be super twitchy, difficult to set up, and consistently unpair from the app. I can HIGHLY recommend the Wyze smart plugs, which I'm able to set up all by myself and don't need my husband's help with, AND they also offer sunrise/sunset settings. I'm hoping that, once I get more Wyze plugs (ordered while watching the video after the struggle with the Kasa plugs), I'll be better able to induce flowering in my Catts and hybrids. I've already gotten one I've had for 3yrs to bloom, I'd been thinking it was the lamp I put it under but maybe it was the combination. If I may make a request, if it's not too much trouble, could you show the video 'chapters' so we can quickly find the section we need to replay? I'm really hoping this ups my Cattleya game. I knew that some orchids, but not all, are photoperiodic, and this helped me group some of mine a little better.

Great timing on the video, it was really helpful. Just one question, I have some cattleyas (hybrids and species) which are growing but their new pseudobulb has kind of slowed down due to the temperature and day length. Would you still fertilize them like maybe once a month or just not apply any fertilizer until march when spring starts? I have all my cattleyas on lava rock. Thanks a lot once again Stephen!!

Excellent insights! Would you say that these best-practices apply to all ges, or only mature plants? I have large seedlings of all the unifoliate species mentioned requiring a dormancy, acquired in the active growing season, so this is my first winter with them. I generally baby my seedlings of any taxa until it seems like they have a good root system and "bulk" to be able to handle a change in conditions when they are mature enough

This much-needed video came just at the moment that I was looking for some information on this! Thanks for this one, Stephen :) Your culture guides are always of great help

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Thank you I will take you advice Happy Christmas 🌸👍

It is a very good video. Thank you! Would your recommendations change if the growing conditions are different from yours, e.g. cattleyas are grown under lights in a warm very dry environment with the temperatures uniform throughout the year? I reduce the number of hours the lights are on for them, but the other factors are difficult to control. Would you cut down on watering under these conditions too? The humidity is higher is warm months because there is no heating which makes the air so dry.

Very interesting subject 🤔 glad you covered it. Yea your spot on about dowiana and its crosses. I learned that 1st hand. I wasnt so aware of alaorii needing a dry rest. I allow mine to dry 2 weeks during winter before watering. It seems to work. Like you said best thing is to researching your plant. Its amazing some things you find out when you do! 😊

I have these shelving units and like how I can easily vary each shelf to the height needed by the plants.

Orchids are beautiful, but in that glass jar, aren't you asking for root rot

Do you ever sell any of your plants? If so, let me know how I can contact you. Ty

Is it better to have two small grow tents rather than one large one? Thx.

Missed your recent few posts becoz of priorities but glad to get started with this one, Stephen 😊 very good setup. What are the winter n8ght temps there?

Great thought put into it. Many times especially for winter storage so to speak , things are just smashed in . When that happens the air flow is reduced to fringe plants. I didn’t see mention of fans or your air movement strategy , I know that wasn’t the topic but my only observation. I was also hoping to see the little rare Hispaniella I sent you … my concern was as this and another one I have here previously bloomed , and mine plant is ok , but lost the main fan after flowering. It is currently booming three new offshoots albeit still tiny and will be large fans in summer . I was curious as to how yours fared … same direction or not much change?

Very nice kudos 🌸🙏👍

Great set up Stephen😃👏🌟🌟🌟The weather is in Winter mode here in Japan and I have all the orchids in an open mini greenhouse with no cover by a sunny window. The humidity is very low in Winter and practically no rain. My Cattleya bowringiana has a new cane just popping out with new root growth and my unnamed Jumbo cattleya is going to bloom.

oh, that labiata s/a is noice! Definitely will be better next bloom and it isn't bad now.

Neat. But it also looks like a lot of work. Question: can one put the tent horizontally? That way one can have one bench almost 6 feet long.

Hey Stephen 👋 looks good! I bet they will do so much better now! Nice re-arrange job. It is like Jenga! 😂 i always said tetris cause mine have to go back certain way😂

Very nice. Orchids should be very happy during winter 🥶. 👏🥰

Nice grow space! Do you use also fans inside the grow box? I have some Catasetum in rest phase... Can i repot them or better wait for spring?

Looks great.

Your last bits on the ugly orchid and the gloves made me laugh 😆