cyps in pots 2013

[monocotman]

Graham,

your conditions ought to be good for cyps with heat stress being unlikely in summer.
Your problems would be more to do with frost/cold winter and pots.
The leaves of Pixi seem to be fairly pale although there are plenty of growths.
My clone has quite dark leaves unlike something , say like Inge or Michael which are paler.
How much feed are you giving to your plants at this time of year?

David

[Graham Catlow]

Hi David,
Thanks for your interest in my Cyps.

I have been growing species not hybrids for about five years now, (Pixie and Gisele from Angie being the exceptions), and started by using the compost mixes in Philip Cribbs book or as close to it as I could get for each species and all seemed well. Then I changed to a mix of pumice, perlite, cat litter and fine bark in various combinations. Then things started to go down hill. Although I haven't had a feeding regime in all that time. More hit and miss. This year I am going to concentrate a little more on them and have started to feed once a week with full strength Miracle Gro (because that's what I have on store). I hope that is ok. I will change to tomato feed in July as you do.

None are in plastic pots although some of them are in a non-natural material but I don't know what it is.

They are in a place in the garden that gets the sun in the morning but has passed by 11.00am. In winter they are left outside but moved to a sheltered corner of the garden with a rain cover to keep the worst of the winter wet off.

If yours are growing in nothing but super course perlite than perhaps I should try that and not worry about other mixes.

I am amazed by the quality of yours and thought the video was a great way of showing them.

Graham

[Botanica]

Hey monocotman, (and other cypri lovers!)

Look my new flowering ..i am so happy for the result !

It's a good year of cypri in the Garden..

[angie]

Graham I am going to try perlite like David is doing, it will be interesting to see how we get on. You can blame the pale leaves on Pixi on me, my other pixi is the same. I really am a bit confused as some of my cyps, have nice green leaves. I do think that I haven't been feeding them enough.
Its great that David has shared his expertise with us. Hope next year we will have nice healthy plants 

Botanica thanks for sharing your lovely Cyps.

Angie 

[Anthony Darby]

I used quarter strength Miracle-Gro® on species and full strength on hybrids once a fortnight, as recommended by Michael Weinert, and he should know.

[angie]

Another cyp, flowering today.
Cypripedium Memoriam Shawna Austin

Angie 

[monocotman]

Angie, that is nice. Mine died!
David

[Peter Maguire]

Lovely colour to that flower Angie, and it's nice to see one that isn't iilustrated in the new Frosch and Cribb Cypripedium book, they seem to have covered most of the others.

It looks like it ought to taste of raspberries, but I'm sure you havn't tried.....? 

[angie]

Lovely colour to that flower Angie, and it's nice to see one that isn't iilustrated in the new Frosch and Cribb Cypripedium book, they seem to have covered most of the others.

It looks like it ought to taste of raspberries, but I'm sure you havn't tried.....? 

Hope it doesn't taste like raspberries as I love raspberries 

David I can't believe that you can kill plants, you have such a lovely collection. I think I am hooked on these cyps, usually I try and grow plants that don't like our cold.  I just need to get the feeding right and I would also like a pure white cypripedium, all mine have pink marks on them.

Angie 

[Corrado & Rina]

Ciao Angie,

Lovely colour!

To the experts: the Memoriam should not simply be classified as a variety of C. x ventricosum?

[annew]

Is it OK to use something like Osmocote slow release pellets on cyps in perlite? Would it remove the need to use liquid feed, for those of us not so organised?

[Peter Maguire]

Anne, I'm guessing here as I've been guilty in the past of underfeeding, but I would say no.

All the advice seems to be of regular, weekly feeding, but flushing away the excess mineral salts with plain water between weekly feeds. Using osmocote would concentrate the chemicals for a whole season in one place. The other potential problem would be that fertilizer release by osmocote is, I believe, temperature dependant and given the weather we've had so far this year, the plants would be starving by now!

[Maggi Young]

Anne, I'm guessing here as I've been guilty in the past of underfeeding, but I would say no.

All the advice seems to be of regular, weekly feeding, but flushing away the excess mineral salts with plain water between weekly feeds. Using osmocote would concentrate the chemicals for a whole season in one place. The other potential problem would be that fertilizer release by osmocote is, I believe, temperature dependant and given the weather we've had so far this year, the plants would be starving by now!

...or, given warmer weather, have been  grossly overfed.....
We gave up using Osmocote in pots for just that reason...... a warm spell caused big problems 
(I'm talking about bulbs here, not orchids, but I see the same difficulty occurring.)

[Peter Maguire]

 Just realised that Angie's Cypripedium 'Memoriam Shawna Austin' is also pictured in 'Goofy's Cyps 2013' reply 21, where the colour of the pouch of Dieter's plant is much paler. It's interesting to see the range of variation that can occur in just one hybrid.

[goofy]

.... 'Goofy's Cyps 2013' reply 21, where the colour of the pouch of Dieter's plant is much paler. It's interesting to see the range of variation that can occur in just one hybrid.

hello,
its very pale this year, which I found also on several other "red" flowered.
such as my ventricosums and others.
It may be an effect from the bad, cold weather here.

(I will look for the "original" clone pic,
when I registered the Shawna for my friend Carl Austin, you will NOT believe)

BUT I am happy, that the cold weather has a very positive effect
on my Ulla Silkens cultivar from Peter Corkhill.

that cultivar is very sensitive to the temps
and makes this year the deepest color I have ever had in the past 11 years.
I love cold rainy weather

pic will follow next days..............

cheers
dieter