Bloom Event - Cymbidium chloranthum

I've never been a big grower of Cymbidium because I've never had a cool greenhouse to keep them in. Don't get me wrong, I love them.  Sadly, all Cymbidium you see for sale in garden centres are cool growers and don't even make particularly good houseplants, partly because many of them are simply too big and unweildy to accommodate and secondly because they don't do well modern centrally heated houses where the temperature is too high, the humidity is not high enough and the light levels are too low. They grow OK (ish), but its hard to get them to flower. A lot of growers put them outside for the summer to give them the cool nights they need to bloom, but I have never had good success with this. Either they get sunburn, blown around by the wind, or they pick up every pest under the sun. And after all that, if they are bought in when they are in spike, quite often buds will drop off in response to the change in conditions.

So, I was condemned to enjoying these beautiful flowers vicariously. However, it turns out that not all Cymbidum were born equal. Some of them come from lower elevations and warmer countries and positively thrive in tropical conditions. Cymbidium chloranthum is one, although there are quite a few others. The flower is not so dazzlingly beautiful as some of its cooler growing cousins. This is at least partly because they haven't been hybridized so much (and there aren't many Cymbidum growers in the UK; it seems to be an Australian thing).

It's a daintly little thing. The flowers remind me rather of some of the Maxillaria species (they are vaguely related) with the lateral petals thrust forward. I particularly like the red and yellow markings on the lip. The flower spike is roughly the same height as the leaves. I read elsewhere that the flowers carry no perfume but I think there is a faint scent. Vegetatively, the plant resembles any other Cymbidium (a good deal smaller than most, but not what you'd call a small plant compared to other orchids) with stout pseudobulbs completely encased by leaf sheaths and sword shaped stiff leaves on top.

I got the plant from Orchid Botanics (link to the right) at the same show at which I purchased Coelogyne salvaneraniana as a flowering size plant and now it is at the right stage of its growth cycle it has put up a spike. I was very pleased to see flower buds as my experience with other Cymbidium has rather put me off them. I'm very glad I got this plant though, as it seems like it needs no particular cajolement to bloom. There seem to be a decent amount of blooms for the size of the plant, and one with multiple spikes (or this one in a couple of years) will be quite an impressive sight.

Once it has bloomed, I will probably re-pot this as it is quite close to the edge of the pot (furthest away in this photo) and Cymbidium are known for their rather robust root systems. Also I haven't had this plant out of its pot and examined the roots since I got it so I imagine the potting medium will need to be changed. All in all, an inspired purchas, I think.

On to an unrelated matter.  I have set up a Facebook page for Kev's Orchids where I will be (indeed, I already am) posting more day-to-day stuff such as emerging flower spikes, new growth, etc as it isn't so easy to get that stuff onto the blog while keeping it coherent. I really do encourage you to check it out and hopefully give me a 'like' to keep yourself up to date with whats going in in that growroom. I will try to get a link to it on the front page, too (that'll be fun).