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ID-ing orchids (and some basic Q&A)

Rokosauros

Edward
So I have been slowly falling in love with the orchid hobby (and so is my mom!). I am however, exceptionally bewildered by orchid ID-ing. I've only been glancing through the books and soaking up some names, but I dont' seem recognize some of them ??? Also, any other ways to get them to flower MORE other than the usual fertilizing. I'm fertilizing all my orchids once a week and it does help, but some growers I know fertilize their orchids TWICE a week. Isn't that a little too much?

Also, I'd like an ID on this orchid? So far, I only know it's a dendrobium hybrid.
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One day, I'll snap all the photos of my orchids together and get you guys to mentor me on what each species/hybrids require :jester:
 
Fetiliizing twice a week is too much, it can damage the roots, and personally I don't use any fertilizer and I get a lot of flowers. In my experience I have found the best way to induce flowering is a few weeks of cool temps and then bringing them back up to normal temps. Mine are outside all summer so I achieve the temp drop by leaving them out into fall, then I see all the spikes emerging. As for the dendrobium there's hundreds of dendrobium hybrids so it would be very hard to positively ID it. I hope this helps!!
 
Also, any other ways to get them to flower MORE other than the usual fertilizing.

Not sure what you're asking here. Produce more flowers at once?

Currently the taxonomists are careening out of control with genera name changes, groupings, and splittings -- something which is ticking off quite a few in the hobby. So some of your frustration will be unavoidable.

Fertilizing is somewhat of a personal preferance. Some folks like to use a fairly strong concentration once or twice a month with all the waterings in between using pure water to flush any accumulating salts out of the media and off the roots. Some like to fertilize weakly weekly. And some like to use a very weak solution with every watering.

As Mike mentioned, there are so many similar looking den hybrids out there, that you will be highly unlikely to ever get a solid ID on that NOID. If it had been a species, that would have been a different story. Lovely hybrid btw.
 
Flowers in my experience are reflected by how well established the plant is. For example, I have a masdevallia that would only send out a few flower spikes that would quickly develop and abort before flowering... The plant kept this up for a month then decided to not send out any spikes for the entirety of last year. I wasn't expecting anything this year, but to my surprise the plant has released well over 15 spikes almost simultaneously and none show any intention of aborting.

Others like phals are seasonal bloomers...if forced to continuously bloom, the spikes poop out and you get fewer and fewer blooms during the next growing season.

General rule: more growth points = more flowers.
 
Hi all, thanks for the response! Technically, all I want is a bigger flower spike. The orchids I buy originated from World United Orchids (something like that), a really huge nursery near my house. Most of their orchids have flower spikes twice the length of mine and double the number of flowers. Tis' a magnificent thing to see and I wish to achieve it.

Amphirion, thanks for pointing out the general rule which I never knew :blush:
 
As a rule of thumb you should fertilize weakly weekly. Once a week at 1/4 strength. Although mine bloom fine without. Or once or twice a year. You will have later blooms with reg fert. But the biggest thing is the proper culture. Number and size of blooms can be influenced by many things, but mainly it is a light issue. Age of the plant plays a big roll too.

You will generally only get flowers once maybe twice a year. More on some species. Orchid sure do one thing. Teach you patience. Remember the plants you are buying are generally 1st or 2nd time flowers plants. Takes them a whole to start putting out the large sprays.

And like dragon and mike said, once a NoID it is pretty much a noid. Look at my thread with three different plants two named and one a noid and all three flowers look very similar.

Goodluck. It is an addicting hobby too.
 
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