2010年2月8日 星期一

Vanda "Sensai Blue"

Spring season comes with loud Vanda hybrids in my area. V. coerulea is a important species for its unique blue-purple color, which is not very common in orchid group. I can't grow V. coerulea very well because it needs high and stable air humidity, and doesn't like very hot temperature. I can't provide such condition for it, so try its hybrid "Sensai Blue". Most hybrids are with deep purple, and those are too dark for me. The color of Sensai-Blue's flowers is not too different from its origin.
There are fake V. coerulea clones, which were crossed to other Vanda species for growing easily in hot area, by backcross with "true" wild V. coerulea for several generations. The fake V. coerulea looks really near wild species, but there are still some different. But because I don't own true and fake V. coerulea clones for compare, it's not easy to understand just explaining difference by words without pictures. Maybe in the future I could write another post.
When I bought the hybrid plant, it was potted without any materials, just a plastic flowerpot, and all aerial root revealed in the air. Although I sprayed water 2~3 times a day at first, the plant still started to fall off its leaves from down to up. This meant it didn't get enough water, so fell leaves off to prevent to lose more water from its tissue by evaporation. It will fall all the leaves to the apical meristem and finally being dead if I don't change the growing way. So potting it to another bigger flowerpot, adding some materials like rough bark and wood coal. Presently I spray water only once everyday, and it starts to grow normally. These potting materials help to keep water because of bigger surface area, and water-evaporation becomes slower when they heap in a flowerpot. If you prefer to grow Vanda hybrids without these materials, you should spray the plant 5~6 times a day, and keep the condition with high and stable air humidity.

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