It is a real shame that we aren’t able to take our plants to all the usual spring shows this year. We have masses of orchids in flower and amongst them some stunning miniatures including Dendrobium bellatulum, one of our favourite Dendrobium species. Dendrobium bellatulum is a small growing plant (the bulbs here are just 3cm long) with huge flowers 5cm across.

Dendrobium bellatulum is native to forests from India right across to Vietnam and is found from 700m to 2100m altitude is forests with a distinct dry season in the winter.

We don’t find this the easiest species in cultivation but have grown it successfully both cool and warm but find it only does well mounted so that it can dry out between waterings (we spray plants daily in the growing season). We now grow the species high in the roof of our Warm Asia section as we found that growing it cooler resulted in too much moss developing on the mount during the wet summer period and this causing roots to rot during the winter rest. Plants flower quickly from seed but we have found that they dislike dividing.

Although a little tricky, the species is well worth persevering with, and the flowers are very long lasting.