Oncidium starts from "backbulbs": Update

Today is my day off. I went for physical therapy for my neck disk, now back home. Before starting "homework", I checked the orchids, watered them. I accidentally noticed the baggy-with-sphagnum-backbulb system that was set up 4 months ago. Buy "set up" I mean, I had cut the backbulbs off the original orchid (Oncidium "dancing ladies"-type) , wrapped them in damp sphagnum moss, placed them into a ziplock baggy, zipped it shut, and left them in an east windowsill. I forgot to record when I started this "experiment". I'm thinking September. That would be 4 months ago.

As I discovered the ziplock bag. Barely visible sprout in the baggie. Cool!

Out of the bag. I couldn't resist. Plus, I wanted to re-position the sprout so that it gets more light.

This plant, started from another backbulb at the same time, is further ahead. growth is slow - after all, (1) it's an orchid and (2) it's midwinter and (3) I don't know what I'm doing. Still, it IS growing.

Flowers on the original plant. Photo taken January, 2008. Although the plant isn't in bloom yet this year, the new bud spike is growing mm by mm.

So now the starts are back in baggies, but separate baggies. The sprouted start is in my home office along with the other orchids, still in baggie because roots have not sprouted yet. I think they will come when the new start is bigger, and roots don't grow from the old backbulb.

Orchid report

This is the Oncidium that I repotted in the fall, thinking I was about to kill it either from bad timing or neglect. After initially potting in sphagnum, I read that sphagnum leads to rot, so I repotted it again in bark-based medium. Then left it to grow in an East exposure window. The newest pseudobulb is now the biggest, the new leaves are the greenest, and the start of a flower spike has begun to peek out at the first leaf. Cool or what! It's now in my home office, south window. With Northwest winters, even the southern exposure shouldn't be too much in Dec/Jan.

Backbulb start, taken from above Oncidium. Started in sphagnum, then potted into bark 2 weeks ago. Appears to be growing nicely. I think that sphagnum is OK for backbulb starts, since they need more moisture and there is thought to be antifungal/antibacterial property to sphagnum. Even if it takes a year or two to bloom, it is very cool to have started it myself!


One of the new oncidiums developed a pseudobulb infection, so is in quarantine. The good news is that I had decided I didn't like that one anyway/

Oncidium progress report.

This is an Oncidium "Gower Ramsey" that I started from a backbulb in 2009. Neither it nor its parent has bloomed since then. Bummer. Plus, I gave away one of the other starts, and the 3rd I accidentally left outside and it froze. The parent is in the sun and got some sunburn, but is growing new sections. I repotted this start yesterday into a larger squat clay pot. I have moved it now to a south window. I think I will just give it bloom food now, low nitrogen.

This is an oncidium-type that I bought as a throw-away last year. After it bloomed, I potted it into a small clay pot and took it to work, where it was in a bright window. I gave it house-plant food as a weak solution roughly weekly. Then I brought it home this Spring, and moved it into a south bathroom window. It bloomed. I was surprised. It's cool! Strange, I thought this was a brown flower... Still, it's cool! Now it's starting a new growth, which is a little wrinkled due to missing some watering, but I think it will be OK.

Oncidium "Twinkle". I didn't think I would buy one of these, but I did. It's been blooming for about 4 months. This flower spike started after the earlier one finished. I potted it into what's become my usual small squat clay pot. It's in a south bathroom window. It's growing a number of new growths so I'm giving it growth food.

I tentatively identified this one as "Stefan Isler". It's been blooming for months. The first 2 spikes are gone, and these are starting to drop flowers. This Oncidium hybrid has been amazing. Really a start performer.

Orchid starts & progress. Oncidium and Vappodes phalaenopsis (Cooktown Orchid)

Today was another homework day. No time for yard work. I did take some photos.

I've been wanting to write up on Dendrobium bigibbum, except it's now called Vappodes phalaenopsis. My friend gave me a start from her plant, so I don't have photos of the blooming plant. I identified it from web pictures, which look exactly like her plant.

(This drawing from wikimedia commons under Dendrobium bigibbum. Illustrator is Vera Scarth Johnson)

Here is the start, I imagine it was a keikei. That was about 3 months ago. It sat for 2 months, then started to grow from the point where the aerial roots are seen. So it's about doubled in size now. I take that as a message that I'm not killing it. Now it's responding with a small shoot from the base - cool! Currently the leaves look a lot like Epidendron leaves, but the botanical drawings of Dendrobium bigibbum also show similar leaves and stems. I had potted up the keikei in the same bark/perlite/peat medium that I use for other orchids, and it's been getting the same weekly/weakly fertilizer regimen as well. I will guess, it's 1 to 2 years from blooming.

The color is a bit darker purple, compared to this drawing. Source is Swiss Orchid Foundation, with drawing originally from Lucien Linden & Emile,
Lindenia Iconographie des Orchidées 1892 I edited the pic with a little color enhancement and cropped a little. Given over a century of fading, this editing may have brought the drawing back toward its original color.

Also from the same source and with a little electronic color enhancement. This was such a handsome print, I wanted to include it even though my plant won't be this color.

Dendrobium bigibbum is also called "the Cooktown orchid" and originates in NE Australia. Let's make it really confusing. D. biggibum was conflated with Dendrobium phalaenopsis, which has flowers somewhat similar to Phalaenopsis but is really distant from that genus. Since then this species has been renamed Vappodes phalaenopsis. So I shouldn't call it dendrobium after all, but that still appears to be the commonly known name. Unless you just call it "Cooktown Orchid." Per Wikipedia, "It lives in a wide variety of habitats ranging from coastal scrub on trees and rocks, to mangroves, riverine vegetation, rainforest, vine thickets, gullies in open forest and even swamps. It used to be prolific around Cooktown but is now rare in the wild, due to over-collecting by commercial collectors."

It's hard to find specific culture information - from the Cooktown orchids website, are a couple of items - "where they grow naturally they have monsoon downpours in the summer and can have no rain at all for 2 - 3 months in the winter." and "fertilise weekly and weakly (1 gram/litre) in the growing season, September to December [in Australia - so here probably March to June?], with a low level nitrogen fertiliser... change to higher level phosphorous and potassium fertiliser... in flowering season, January [in Australia] till the flowers drop. The plants make new growths, flower from those growths and set seedpods between September to April [in Australia] so frequent feeding is almost mandatory for best results."

This is the Oncidium that got it all started for me. No ID, my wild guess is "Gower Ramsey" but that may change if I can get a picture showing the pseudobulbs. I'm hoping a current tiny bud at the base of the newest pseudobulb on the original plant is a bloom spike. However, the last "bloom spike" turned out to be a new growth instead, which matured into a nice plump pseudobulb.

This may be due to my enhanced interest in orchids. It seemed to bloom fine with neglect, but now it's getting water and is in a brighter window, and getting weekly/weakly plant food, and the resultant pseudobulbs and leaves are shiny and lush. Maybe it needs neglect in order to bloom. We'll see.
OK, so this is the first of the starts to take off and grow. I've blogged on these Oncidium backbulbs before. They continue to grow, and are all producing lots of aerial roots that then find their way into the medium and become nonaerial roots, just like the parent plant. I think now they have progressed beyond being called "backbulb" and can now be considered actual orchid plants. If the parent plant blooms, then these might bloom in a year or two.

Here are the 2 smaller ones. One is in a clear plastic pot, so I can see roots as they develop. The other is in a clay pot. I can compare notes on how they grow in the 2 pot types. The plant in plastic is smaller but started much later as well.

Not pictured here are some "sort-of starts" of Cattleya. One is a piece of the Cattleya walkeriana alba, it has no leaves but is starting to grow a new growth. very gradual. The other is a group of 3 tiny, tiny plants that came with Jewelbox orange. When that plant arrived, I repotted it. There were 3 pieces that must have been in the same community pot when it was cloned, but didn't take off and grow. Those are in a sphagnum baggie. If they grow, I'll be impressed at the plant's resilience. If not, nothing really lost.

Tomato and pepper seedlings

Last weekend (Sunday) I planted most of the varieties of peppers and tomatoes. There will be a few more to plant this coming weekend. They are in little pudding cups with holes drilled in the bottoms. I did use the seed starting mat - many sprouted in 2 days. That's impressive! So far, just tomatoes. The peppers are cayenne peppers that were in the seed starting experiment. I changed them over to regular potting soil. With their slow rate of growth, the early start may be needed. To the right is another of the orchid backbulb experiments, growing a tiny sprout. For the time being, it's under the light as well.


I dug out the old fluorescent light fixture and set it up in the window for the seedlings. That way, they get actual (but meager) sunlight, and much more supplemental light. This worked well in the past.