365 days of orchids – day 281 – Barkeria lindleyana
 
This weekend is a pink weekend with this charismatic Central American species to follow Cattleya maxima. This Barkeria is found in from Mexico to Costa Rica in warm deciduous forest where it experiences a distinct dry season. It responds to the dry habitat by producing a mass of roots and growing tall canes rapidly during the summer growing season. The flowers are dramatic and long lasting.
We find that Barkerias need to be mounted to do well as the roots rot in pots and we hang the bark mounts high in Warm Anericas where plants get bright light and dry out rapidly after daily spraying.
The plant here was purchased as a seedling in-vitro from Costa Rica by a friend and has been flowering now for many years – a great advert for orchids in-vitro.
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Tried raising orchids,but failed miserably.
Really enjoyed your photos.
We are glad that you are enjoying the photos – Our experience is that raising orchids from seed in-vitro is much easier when you are doing it regularly and have a lab all set. We will be running workshops for the public to learn the skills both at the European Orchid Show at Paris in 2018 (22nd-25th March 2018 https://www.facebook.com/eocce2018/ ) and at the British orchid Orchid Show and Congress at Writhlington on 2-4th November 2018.