Growing pleiones - the hard way...

[monocotman]

Maren,
so glad to hear that you've caught the culprit.
Have a great w/e and forget about this episode!
David

[Maren]

Yes, definitely something to draw a line under. But I've put a reminder in my diary to put out rat poison on the 1st March forever.

[Jan Methorst]

Maren,

Very glad you got rid of this problem.
I hope you have a very good time at the show and sell lots of plants.
jan

[Darren]

Enjoy the show Maren and I'm glad you've solved the problem!

[johnw]

Maren - What a relief for you, and the rest of us I might add.

Hope life returns to normal and so happy to hear you are off to the Show.  

johnw

[fleurbleue]

Good news Maren  I'm glad for you 

[Slug Killer]

Hope it was just one rat and not two chasing each other!

[angie]

Maren glad to hear that you have solved the mystery. We were all waiting to find out who done it.

Angie 

[Maren]

Thank you all for your concern, it was a great help.

Mind you, if as Dave says, there were two chasing each other......well, the other one probably dined at the same table and is on its way to Nirwana.

[sottych]

BRAVO  MAREN !!!

He came back and this time you had it , but beware there may be to others.
It is many a rat .
You can put traps around , outside of your greenhouse .

[Slug Killer]

Maren

Glad you caught it but not a nice sight to see entering the greenhouse and then having to deal with it. I would have put a few pellets in to it before picking it up. A couple of traps on the outside is not a bad idea.

Around the base of the rats tail there is a Pleione which appears to have a flowering shoot coming from where the bulbils grow. Is this correct and if so what Pleione is it?

[SteveC2]

An interesting observation David and something that I've noticed on a few of my own bulbs, particularly ones which have grown completely buried in the compost.
Like everyone else I've followed the "rat"saga with interest and am glad that Maren is going to the London show, if only because I'm going too.  Watch out wallet there are pleione for sale!

[Slug Killer]

Steve

I've had new growth start before but never a flowering shoot. Last year I also had the main shoots die off on a Rakata and the two 'bulbils' produced rooted and grew larger than the original flowering size bulb!

[monocotman]

David,
if you lose a new growth on a pleione to rot then the subsequent bulbils produced can root and get very big indeed if there are no other growths.
I've encouraged this in the past by burying the bulb deeper than usual and produced bulbils that are almost flowering size,
David

[Slug Killer]

Yes I usually push some moss around the sides of the bulb if the bulbils are showing signs of rooting. I've also had normal shoots appear once or twice but never a flowering one from there.

Strange growth usually seems to occur when a bulb is stressed after losing it's shoots and rotting roots but it's clearly not the case with Marens above as the bulb looks to be doing exceptionally well. Maybe it's rat manure