I present for you my orchids

[Botanica]

A new buds of next year





This post to present my collection

Cypripedium formosanum


Cypripedium pubescens and parviflorum in mix


Cypripedium henryii


Cypripedium kentuckiense


Cypripedium flavum


Cypripedium reginae


Cypripedium parviflorum in flower



Cypripedium calceolus


I cultivate the Cypri genus in a mix of sand of river , loam (in french terreau) and heathland (in french terre de bruyere) and this ( pouzzolane)



It's a good mix for me , and for you..what is your substrate  ?

Like this for culture ..




For other orchids, my bletilla's

A white one ..



A another Bletilla striata ..i have most of an hundred of this one









And pléiones formosanum

[Botanica]

Hello

Nobody to discuss cypripediums and culture of this species.

Who, in this Forum, have cypripedium in culture ?

I need some informations from "Expert" for the nature of the soil , the quality of substrat and fertilizer that you use ....

I have more thant 40 cypripediums in the garden

Cypripedium flavum
Cypripedium calceolus
Cypripedium parviflorum
Cypripedium pubescens
Cypripedium henryii
Cypripedium formosanum
Cypripedium reginae
Cypripedium "Ulla Silken"


I prepare an order in group for other cypri.....I totaly crazy about this plants....So beautiful ...No ?


Thank you in advance for your feedback and advice

See you soon ! 

[John Aipassa]

Nice looking Cyps you have there Botanica. Looks that you have an expert level yourself already .

I see only Cyps in pots, but you also state having Cyps in the garden. Do you use the same mix in the garden as you use in pots?

I don't have any Cyps in pots. Mine are growing in the garden. I am terrible with pot growing .
Since I have a sandy soil, I mix a lot of humus by adding peat and leaf mould based potting soil and seramis, perlite and small bark chips in with the soil (6 inches deep) and to increase the root surface of the orchid and keep pathogens down I also put a mix of endo and ecto mycorrhizae in the soil.

Cheers,

[Maggi Young]

There are many Cypripedium threads in the Forum - these deal with growing mixes etc :

http://www.srgc.net/forum/index.php?topic=8700.0

http://www.srgc.net/forum/index.php?topic=8951.0

http://www.srgc.net/forum/index.php?topic=9201.0

http://www.srgc.net/forum/index.php?topic=6800.0

http://www.srgc.net/forum/index.php?topic=7125.0

http://www.srgc.net/forum/index.php?topic=7192.0

http://www.srgc.net/forum/index.php?topic=5463.0

http://www.srgc.net/forum/index.php?topic=198.0

http://www.srgc.net/forum/index.php?topic=4298.0

[Maren]

Hello Botanica,

I saw your first post but was too busy to answer. I too grow lots of cypripediums, both in pots and in the garden. In pots I use a compost made up of Seramis, pumice, super coarse Perlite and some decayed beech leaves. I used to grow them in deep pots, to save space when taking them to shows for sale. But I discovered that they do better in wide pots, so now they are in 3 litre pots. My theory is that in narrow pots, the roots are too close to the sides, so if the pot heats up in the summer when the sun shines on it, the roots cook and they don't like that.

I am interested in the material you use, but I don't think it is available in the UK. What is it called and where do you buy it?

In the garden I prepare the soil in a way similar to John Aipassa, adding lots of drainage material and Mycorrhiza to improve growth.

If you want to know in detail how I grow my cypripediums, take a look at my website.

[angie]

Hi Botanica

I to have only seen your post today. When the weather is nice here in Aberdeen I am in the garden so I sometimes have a bit of catching up to do on the forum. I grow Cypripediums but I am just a beginner and Its great to see your methods. All mine are starting to die back now. I only have one in the garden to see how it goes. I grow the rest in pots. My soil here is very shallow and then we are into rock.
I have to split some to give to my friends. I am so nervous when I do this but I have also read that it is not good to let the clumps get to big, not that I am at that stage yet.

I have had good advice from our members here and will be really interested to hear more from you.

Angie 

[Botanica]

Thank you everybody

Hello angie, Maren, John Aipassa... pleased to meet you

For substratum, i use a mix of  :

- loam, not a brand specifiquely but a medium price or quality
- Heathland , not a brand specifically but a medium price or quality
- River sand , the brand is from HUBO (in Belgium)
- And finaly to drain correctly , i use pouzzonale , the brand form Botanic (in France)
I use pouzzonale under the soil to drain the soil and in surface for snail and slug.

When the winter come, i use flax straw ("Pailli de Lin" in French) to protect.


It's fundamentally simply you know .. I don't use fertilizer , but this year i test  horn crushed (roasted ).


For culture i place the Cyp in a prepared soil with mix  and directly planted, but last year i have a animal (rodent  )  that damage two orchids 
So...i directly put ALL  cypri in pots but some cyp are in very large pot (trade is Grandon)  and other are in plastic pots pu in the soil to protect roots from an attack.

That is why I talked about in the garden cypripedium 

I was not an expert of cypri , i don't thinks but it's a good succes for the moment !

I want to expand the species of cyp this year !

If someone have a little piece of Cyp of a mother plant split ..Contact me for exchange ...if it's possible !

For Maren >>> I know that split a cyp too early is a dangerous act for the plant !

I see that certain person use Mycorrhiza ...i know this effect (i am biologist) but where you buy this product ?

Whats is the strain/species of Mycorrhiza exactly ? A scientific article confirmed this effect  ?


You have some photos of you culture of cyp ?..I love photo of Cypri !! I am a CypriAddict !

See you later.

[John Aipassa]

About the mycorrhizae and orchids much is still unknown and have to be researched. For instance a long time it is thought that orchids 'use' Rhizoctonia sp. for germination, but more recently Kew has finished a project to find out if Helleborine orchids use ectomycorrhiza instead of Rhizoctonia to germinate and grow better: http://www.kew.org/science-research-data/directory/projects/OrchidEctomycorrhiza.htm

The source where I buy my mycorrhiza mix for orchids are plant biologists, who do not have an exact clue yet which specific mycorrhiza species are beneficial for orchids, but according to them it is most probably ecto mycorrhizae, but they are not sure yet unless more research is done. Just by accident they found out that their mix (initially developed for trees and shrubs) work on garden orchids too. This is their mix:

Ecto: Amanita muscaria, Boletus edulis, Hebeloma crustuliniforme, Laccaria laccata, Paxillus involutus, Pisolithus tinctorius, Scleroderma citrinum, Thelephora terrestris, Xerocomus badius

Endo: Glomus etunicatum, Glomus microaggregatum, Glomus intraradices, Glomus claroideum, Glomus mosseae, Glomus geosporum


I also use another mix sourced from the States, which has the following mix:

Beneficial Endo Mycorrhizal fungi species:  Glomus intraradices, Glomus mosseae, Glomus aggregatum, Glomus clarum, Glomus deserticola, Glomus etunicatum, Gigaspora margarita, Gigaspora brasilianum, Gigaspora monosporum

Beneficial Ecto Mycorrhizal fungi species: Rhizopogon villosullus, Rhizopogon luteolus, Rhizopogon amylopogon, Rhizopogon fulvigleba, Pisolithus tinctorius, Laccaria bicolor, Laccaria laccata, Scleroderma cepa, Scleroderma citrinum, Suillus granulatas, Suillus punctatapies

Trichoderma species: Trichoderma harzianum, Trichoderma konigii

Beneficial bacteria: Bacillus subtillus, Bacillus licheniformis, Bacillus azotoformans, Bacillus megaterium, Bacillus coagulans, Bacillus pumlis, Bacillus thuringiensis, Bacillus stearothermiphilis, Paenibacillus polymyxa, Paenibacillus durum, Paenibacillus florescence, Paenibacillus gordonae, Azotobacter polymyxa, Azotobacter chroococcum, Sacchromyces cervisiae, Streptomyces griseues, Streptomyces lydicus, Pseudomonas aureofaceans, Deinococcus erythromyxa


So the species of mycorrhizae are numerous in these mixes so one or more of them do the work.

[John Aipassa]

Hmm somehow my Kew link doesn't work . Maybe this time?


http://www.kew.org/science-research-data/directory/projects/OrchidEctomycorrhiza.htm

[Maggi Young]

Not sure what went wrong with the link, John -  I've "repaired"  the first one for you now.

[Maren]

Hi,

I looked up Pouzzolane and it reminds me of the material I walked on when exploring the crater of Mount Vesuvius.

Pouzzolane is not available in the United Kingdom, unfortunately. I think it is similar to pumice, but harder and less likely to crumble.  It would be wonderful to try it, because it is light weight and the rough surface would make a good deterrent for slugs and snails. Do you know of any distributors who ship to England? or Belgium or Holland?

Regarding mycorrhiza, I use Wortelflora, see here http://webwinkel.servaplant.nl/36-bomen-en-heesters-/83/wortelflora-500-g.html.. I have only recently discovered this and entered into a useful correspondence with the developers (botanists). With my first purchase, they sent me a free gift, mycorrhiza for acid soils. I immediately used this to try and rescue a tray of very sad looking Pogonia ophioglossoides. I re-potted half of them with the mycorrhiza and the other half without. The first half are all showing new and healthy growth, the second half looks dead.

[John Aipassa]

Not sure what went wrong with the link, John -  I've "repaired"  the first one for you now.

Thank you Maggi  .

I think I know what went wrong. I copy paste the kew URL in my post and typed a full stop (.) after it. When posting it the full stop became a part of the link, which then couldn't work properly anymore. In the second post I didn't type a full stop after the url and it worked immediately, so I think that's the reason.

[Botanica]

Thank's for your explaination of the Mycorhize products.

A very large diversity of fungi  ..this is not really specific  most Empirical method you know ..But if the effect is expérimentaly proved and that your culture is most great ...It's cool !

I know that some species of Cypri like Cyp acaule, was most difficult for culture because that need fungi but i think nobody discovered the exact species of fungi .

A difficult studies in microbiology !

what species you grow Mr John Aipassa ? I am open for some exchange if you want !

For Maren and angie if you want ! 
   
I start a command for Cypri for the end of the month probably with other forumist and friend

soon I will have new species 

[John Aipassa]

In nature Cypripedium acaule do need a fungus to germinate as do almost all orchids, but in vitro you don't need any fungus. For growing you also do not need mycorrhizae, but it helps the orchid for growing much better. The increase of 'root' surface gives the plant more and better acces to nutrients and water and the mycorrhizae keeps pathogens more at bay. They can deal with less favourable conditions this way. Because I don't grow plants in pots I do try to give them better growing conditions with the mycorrhizae as I do for all my newly planted plants, trees and shrubs.

Cypripedium acaule is the only one that doesn't get an inocculation of mycorrhizae in my garden. My set up to grow this one is different because of the necessity of wanting a very acid (< PH 4,5) soil to grow in. 

I have killed many acaule in previous years, because of their requirements, but finally found a succesfull one for me (so far). I grow them in the garden but in plastic round 90 litre tubs dug in in the garden with a small hole in the tube 3 to 4 inches below the tub edge. The tub is filled from bottom to top with quartz sand , peat and living Sphagnum peat moss. In the quartz sand there are plant pots upside down to create water pockets in the sand layer. The green living peat moss layer is about 6 inches high. In this top layer the Cypripedium acaule roots are planted in and well growing at this moment. It is actually a man made little bog. In dry spells I sometimes water with rain or demineralised water with a little cider vinegar added to it.

The living Sphagnum creates an acid asceptic environment and keeps pathogens away. I have finally succeeded to keep acaule alive and growing with this method. The root systems look nice and white, which I haven't managed with previous methods.

I focus mainly on hybrids, but have some species too:

Species: acaule, calceolus, guttatum, japonicum, parviflorum ssp. parviflorum, parviflorum ssp. makasin, tibeticum.

Hybrids found in the wild too: x alaskanum, x andrewsii, x columbianum

Garden hybrids: Aki pastel, Bärbel Schmidt, Emil, Erika, Gisela pastel, Ingrid, Rascal, Sebastian, Ulla Silkens white, montanum x kentuckiense, candidum x kentuckiense, montanum x reginae

Expected this fall: Alois, Annegret, Boots, kentuckiense x microsaccos

All are in the garden. You can see photos in previous threads on this forum.

[Botanica]

Excellent for the Cyp acaule,

If many people studies your protocle for grow Cyp acaule, less dead of plants we have..it's good !

I note the protocole for me if i test this cyp .

What a collection you have !  Good diversity !

Note: I have seen some photos of your culture as you said

New photo , it's Cypripedium parviflorum in pot but in the soil !