Cypripedium 2009

[Joakim B]

Hans Could the unknown be C. fasciolatum or C. farreri?
Hard to tell without knowing the size.
Frosch has some photos of details on his webpage.
http://www.w-frosch.de/Cypris/Arten/fasci.htm
Kind regards
Joakim

[johanneshoeller]

Joakim, the second unknown Cyp is not fasciolatum, because it is too small. I think it is farreri.
But I have no idea because the first unknown Cyp.

Hans

[Joakim B]

Hans I think You are right about the second even if C. fasciolatum has a large span in size according to the Frosch website.
The strong colour of the first indicate Cypripedium calcicolum Syn. C. smithii or maybe C. tibeticum but maybe the size make it a hybrid or just a smaller flowered version of the one. I have only seen picture of paler flowered C. yunnanense but I have not seen any of them in real life.

Hope You find out and when You do please let us know too.

Thanks for showing these and hope there will be more
Kind regards
Joakim

[Stephen Vella]

 ???you dont fertilize...whats in your potting mix that provides nutrients?

Whatever your doing it works for you

cheers

[Anthony Darby]

I can only reiterate that I give mine quarter strength liquid feed once a fortnight for species (full strength for robust hybrids). There is not enough organic material in my mix and for more information see www.cypripedium.de/forum. This web site is in English.

[Stephen Vella]

Thanks Anthony for your Fert programe and yes I do know of Cyp de forum. This fert progarame seems to be a standard one to follow. My mix is just a minerial mix also but I have included Seramis last year and they have responded well with an inorganic feed. The hybrids I have added some organics in the potting mix (bark, coco fibre) but still hesitate to fert at full strenghth but I still can understand that Hans doesnt fertilise his at all with 20% peat i think he mentions?..

I always thought Asain sp dont like organics in their mix so how does he do without fertilising..Whats your secrete Hans?

Cheers

[Paul T]

Just caught up on this topic.  Yet again it is breathtaking.  So many wonderful Cypripediums.  I have GOT to find more of them here in Aus. 

[Hristo]

Hi there, this is a Cypripedium hybrid, name lost, though it might be 'Sabine', the flower is fairly large.
All ID thoughts gratefully accepted......

[Hristo]

1) Flowering for the umpteenth year, Cypripedium 'Gisella', bought this one off Ian Christie and it's been a great little plant!
2) First flowering with me, Cypripedium franchetii.

[Joakim B]

Hi Chris nice cypripediums.
I like the last one but I do not think it is a franchetii. They are generally paler.
http://www.w-frosch.de/Cypris/Arten/franc.htm
I think You have a very nice form of C. tibeticum. I think that is the most popular form of it so I preume You are very happy with it.
I will also put a link to the tibeticum of frosch website and You can deside Yourself if it is that or not.
http://www.w-frosch.de/Cypris/Arten/tibet.htm

It seems as if You have Your plants in beds and I wonder if it is in the normal modified garden soil or if You have a high content of inorganics like perlite/leca and so on in the soil or if the "soil" is made of these components almost entirely?
Kind regards
Joakim

[Hristo]

Joakim, non of these inorganics are available here in BG. I have adopted the 'know your plant' approach and have attempted to cater for their light and moisture requirements whilst quietly ignoring the actual composition of the substrate. So the Gisella, formosanum, henryi, flavum and reginae are growing in half to three quarters shade, their roots/rhizome are in a fairly nice moisture retentive woodland soil, the noses protrude above into decomposing bark/hazelnuts, about 4 to 6cm depth. The 'franchetii', fasciolatum, parviflorum ssp pubescens, smithii and macranthos are growing in three quarters shade on a 35 degree slope in a poor clay soil with an admixture of crushed concrete and render covered with a 1cm layer of composted bark. The hybrid is growing in three quarters shade in a seasonally wet very moisture retentive clay soil which has had composted bark dug into it! ( remains moist all year but is never saturated )
My other guiding principle are, will it stay moist at the height of summer when temps can hit 40c and their is no rain for two months, are the noses deep enough when snow cover is taken into account to survive winter lows of -25c, and is the substrate free draining enough to cope with several weeks of heavy snow melt!
I love cyps, but I don't think they will ever figure in my business plan, my location is a little too marginal, further north or another 500m of altitude would help!

[Joakim B]

I would persume that both, some varity of leca (expanded clay) and perlite used for insulation, would be available. The latter exist for sure in Hungary and it might move into Bulgaria with the international things like Baumarkt and what they are called ( a blue firm as well). Maybe Bulgaria has not got all the international ones yet? Hungria has them all much more than Sweden has.
Lidafors orchids (Malmgren) also recomend good garden soil as a substrate and they use some roof tiles as cover for the winter since the Swedish winter may be cold but has a lot of periods of snomelt and barefrost as well. His webpage is great and I strongly recomend it to anyone interested in European orchids. How they then grow there plants differ from the place they are in so there is not one unic solotion.

What do You think of the possibility of You having a nice tibeticum? Since You did not seem to have one before it might not be to bad (if bad at all).

Thanks for the information
Joakim

[Hristo]

Hi Joakim,
It's my day for miss-naming! I think you are correct I keyed it out and the plant I have does not have a densely hairy ovary, Cribbs suggests this is the best way to distinguish franchetii from tibeticum. I used to have tibeticum in the UK but lost it, so it is no great loss for franchetii to become tibeticum!

Leca is just becoming available but frankly it's an unneccessary expense as are many of these other artificial substrates, the climate is such here that many plants, including most of the european terrestrial orchids I grow, do not need fussing and do not need to be grown in pots. If I need an artificial substrate I can use frosted house bricks, they crumble into something resembling seramis!

[Anthony Darby]

Hi Chris, I would go with 'Sabine'. Here are two more of mine: firstly 'Karl Heinz', X Ventricosum Album (3 larger flowers at the back are a different clone) and then 'Sebastian'.

[Anthony Darby]

BTW notice in 'Karl Heinz' the three upper flowers in the middle on the pic are on one stem.