fbpx

WSBEorchids

365 days of orchids – day 226 – Dendrobium harveyanum

This wonderful dendrobium is native to Southern China and South East Asia where it grows as an epiphyte at around 1100-1700m in seasonally dry forest. It is semi deciduous and flowers from new and old pseudobulbs together in a fantastic display of its intricate flowers with long filamented edges to the lip and petals. The flowers are produced in sprays similar to the closely related Dendrobium fimbriatum.

Books recommend a cool winter rest for the species but we find that our plant (shown here) comes into growth very late in the year (September to October) and then grows during the winter so we move the plant into Warm Asia (min 18C) when in growth and only move it to Cool Asia for a rest when the growths are fully mature (around February) the cool rest then initiates an abundant summer flowering and this year our plant has fifteen sprays which will flower over the next few weeks.

When we have kept the plant in Warm Asia throughout the year the flowering has been rather sparse in comparison.

We find the plant enjoys growing in a basket and with its extensive rooting we drop the basket into a bigger one when needed rather than causing lots of disturbance to the roots.

The flowers are sweetly fragrant.

Top

Join the Discussion

Discussion

There aren't any comments yet, why not be the first?