Dendrobium capra

Dendrobium capra grows like any other dendrobium. The plant is vulnerable to rot disease so well drained potting media and good air circulation is very important. Mine was mounted on the tree bark .

Book: Orchid Growing in the Tropics

This book is must for every orchid grower/enthusiast in the tropics area. The 208 pages is very usefull guide for beginner to growing orchid in the tropics. The book start with an introduction to different type of orchid, discuss the culture requirement for each genera, and at the end shows the orchid disease and treatment. A lot of color photograph included in the book.

This is the first orchid book I bought when getting serious into growing orchid. I ordered directly from OSEA (http://home1.pacific.net.sg/~ossea/)

B1 vitamin

B1 vitamin can easily be found at gardening supplies store. Most of people used it as root stimulant and anti stress. I'm using B1 mostly for new repotted plant, by spraying B1 solution into the media and leaves. Some grower use B1 regularly (once a month) in order to stimulate root growth.

Some web pages stated that B1 for stimulating root is only myth and the others say that B1 need to be combine with root hormone or plant growth regulators in order to achieve maximum result. Which statement is true, I don't know, but many growers still use B1 nowadays. Therefore during B1 application, I mix B1 with Atonik (Plant Growth Regulators)

Links related to B1 and plant growth regulators:

http://www.quickgrow.com/gardening_articles/plant_hormones.html
http://www.colostate.edu/Depts/CoopExt/4DMG/Garden/beware.htm

Fertilizing

For Fertilizing I used Top Soil, Fish Emulsion, Growmore, and Vitabloom. Top Soil is an organic fertilizer developed by Ayub Pranata (He has orchid nusery in Lembang, West Java - He is also produce many orchids hybrid), and I think Top Soil is only available in Indonesia. I mix one spoon of Top Soil with 4 liter of water, and spray it to the leaves and potting media every week. Sometimes I use Fish Emulsion instead of Top Soil. When compared to the Fish Emulsion, Top Soil is less smelly eventhough you could still smell fishy from it.

To promote flowering I use Growmore and Vitabloom (with high P) quater strength every other week. Orchid likes frequent fertilizing with less strength and from my observation orchid prefer organic fertilizer ;-).

Cattleya Peny Curoda

This very easy to grow and to flower cattleya. In my collection it blooms two or three time per-year. The flower can last for 1 week and very fragant. Like any other catelya, it like a lot of sun (25% shade) and daily watering.

Introduction

I live in Cileungsi, West Java (it is about 15 km south Jakarta). I grow almost 200 pots of orchids in my backyard. The temperature at Cileungsi is about 27 C at nigh and 31 C at noon. Most of my orchid is Dendrobium, Vanda and Catelya. There are some Bulbophylum, Eria, Phalaenopsis and Cymbidium in my collection.

Starting from today, I will post my blooming orchid photo and write how to grow my orchid in this weblog.

Thanks

Best Regards

Soerjo Winarto