Dactylorhizas 2012

[Tony Willis]

I am trying a couple of fungicides but also using Viresco to see if I can build some sort of immunity. This might seem at odds with each other but i am keeping the fungicide doses well spaced apart.

I am also worried I might have it on a platanthera but it might just be poor cultivation so I will have to wait and see.

[Neil]

I think you could be right about the Platanthera being susceptible to it as I lost mine the other year.  Also at the end of the growing season, mine are all in pots, I dispose of all the growing media and start with fresh for the following year.  This has reduced the instances of it.  Hopefully I have seen the back of it and can start getting more in.  Although I do have some invitro ATM which should have been deflasked last year but I held off for one more year.

[mark smyth]

weedling just now I found another 7 Dactylorhozas.

[mark smyth]

Today I potted, singly, 23 spotty babies that self seeded in to pots.

[mark smyth]

Tomorrow they will be top dressed with cambark

[Maren]

Hi Mark,
what compost did you use?

[mark smyth]

A mix of top soil, leaf mould and grit which is probably wrong

[Maren]

Seems to work for you.

[ChrisB]

Mine seed into all my pots and sinks too.  They seem to be comfortable growing in grass, cracks in paving, in my pond, in very dry open pots in fact I can't think of a location they are not happy.  So I reckon the compost one uses to repot them doesn't matter a jot.

[mark smyth]

Chris mine varied also in their choice. Very gritty mixes, pure grit, wet peaty mixes. They definitely like growing among the roots of other plants especially Geraniums, Iris and Hostas.

Their roots varied in size from not much to about 8cm long. The tubers were mostly in the top couple cms with about half of the roots among the moss and weeds on the surface.

[ChrisB]

Mine have turned up in any pots that hang around and don't get planted out within a couple of years.  I keep some semps in pots on top of the cold frame brickwork and they love to get in those.  But they are quite dry except when it rains.  When I empty a pot that I know they are in, the tubers or whatever you call the piece below the soil, like yours, vary from a slivver to something as thick as my finger.  They are not picky at all when it comes to settling in.  I just wish my very choicest one would start producing more projeny.  Its super. Just popped out to take a photo of its foliage, its D. fuchsii of course.  Stunning foliage.  I daren't move it because its settled in in this sink.  I'm going to have to top dress the sink but not take stuff out.  Time consuming and tedious....

[mark smyth]

wow that's a lovely self sown Dactylorhiza. If that was mine I would divide it in July and make a small group. How many growing points?

[ChrisB]

It's not self sown Mark, I got it from a nursery at Hexham Show about four years ago.  They had others but none were as good as the one I bought, and I think theirs were self sown seedlings.  It was quite small but its multiplied nicely.  Its flowers are nice, but not as nice as that foliage.  I think I counted 4 growing points this year, so its bulking up.  I can't bear to dig it out though, I'm afraid of spoiling it.

[Maggi Young]

I think next year you will do better to lift it and spread the tubers out a bit, Christine. By next August it will likely be double in size and will appeciate some extra space and fresh soil. Some clumps do go on flowering quite well when congested, but it's a risk so we tend to lift and split fairly regularly. The foliage on that one is really nice and surely worth keeping an eye on to keep it in finest fettle.   

[ChrisB]

Ok, I hear ya both... I'll take a deep breath and sort it out this summer....