Bloom Event - Dendrochilum cobbianum

I have a real soft spot for Dendrochilum species. They are modest sized plants that are easy to grow, and many are very nicely scented. Dendrochilum cobbianum is not uncommon in cultivation by any means, yet relatively few people seem to grow it. Perhaps it isn't showy enough, I don't know. D. cobbianum has comparitively large flowers compared to many members of the genus, but they are still very difficult to photograph (at least with my Nexus). What they lack in size they make up for in quantity, though.

Actually, that's not too bad, is it? I am tragic enough to have counted the flowers on this spike, and I make it 53. Of course, when photographing, it doesn't help that the flowers all face downward as well. The flowers are very strongly scented. When I was first introduced to this species, many moons ago, I really didn't like the scent at all, but my plant smells very pleasant. Maybe it's me that's changed.

Dendrochilum are closely related to Coelogyne, and seem to enjoy similar treatment. My Dendrochilum have all grown better since I have grown them warmer (the label says intermediate I think) and given them more water. The inherited knowlege I had was always that if an orchid isn't actively growing it should be allowed to dry between waterings, but this doesn't seem to be true for quite a lot of orchids. Turns out neither Dendrochilum nor Coelogyne like this, and don't thrive if they dry out. Now I'm watering before they dry, they are growing more quickly, flowering better, I'm getting growths bigger than the proceeding ones, and quite often more of them too.

This plant is doing well, but I do wish it would produce more than one growth at a time. Having said that, a friend of mine has a much larger plant than this that hasn't flowered for five years, so I should be careful what I wish for.

Can you imagine how this would look (and smell) if it had several flower spikes all out at once? The very oldest couple of leaves have black marks on them (probably a secondary infection bought on by insect attack which was bought on by initially keeping the plant too dry), but the the new emerging leaf and last years leaf are clean (a result of better culture; pat self on back). The newly developing pseudobulb is already as tall as last years, so should be a good bit bigger when it is completed. Bigger pseudobulbs equal more new growths in due course.

I have also started to feed much more regularly recently. I have never been a big fan of feeding orchids before, and it is certainly true that they are perfectly capable of growing and flowering using just what tiny amount of feed is present in the growing medium and water we use to irrigate. But why settle for them just subsisting when we could take them to the banquet? I should point out right away that overfeeding them is far more damaging than underfeeding them, but giving a full strength feed once a fortnight seems to work rather well. I have read in several places that one should feed 'weekly, weakly' by diluting the orchid feed by more than suggested on the bottle but I prefer to feed at full strength so I can flush the growing medium with plain water to remove any dissolved salts that can damage roots. I am still experimenting with the various brands of orchid feed, and there is still one on my list that I haven't tried yet but want to. At the moment, I am feeding with orchid focus which seems fine, as did the last bottle which was the Lorbex brand. It probably matters very little what you actually use, provided you don't go mad with it. The only issue I have with branded orchid feeds is that they are often labelled as 'grow' and 'bloom' formula. This seems a blatant excuse to sell two bottles of feed where one would have done perfectly well. Furthermore, trying to separate out and give different feeds depending on whether plants are blooming or not is bordering on insanity. I much prefer to give a balanced feed so I can give all the plants the same (in fact, I do give them all the same, regardless of whether they are growing or blooming, or what it says on the bottle). I suppose I could put half strength of both solutions in the spray bottle, but that seems to be just unnecessary messing around.