Lazy bloomers.

15 years ago

There is a Blc Rustic Spot for sale on eBay. It started at $15 and I put in a bid. Now bidding is up to $30 and I have long ago lost interest. Here is the description from eBay:

---------'You are bidding on an overgrown Blc. Rustic Spots orchid plant in bud/bloom. The picture of the plant is the actual plant on which you are bidding. The other picture shows what the blooms will look like. You can see the bloom color variation this plant can have..........you have two different seedlings in the same pot on this one.

This plant is in a 4" plastic pot and will need a larger pot after blooming, or you could divide it into 4-5 plants. It has 55 pseudo growths with 2 of them in bloom and another in bud, and is 16" in total height.'--------

These 2 plants have a combined total of 55 pbulbs which between them managed only 3 blooming leads. Bidding is fierce as people obviously like the number of pbulbs. For me the fact that 55 leads only managed 3 blooms is a red flag. Some plants are just lazy bloomers and no matter how well you take care of them will never bloom as they should.

There may be a number of reasons why this plant has not more flowers but there is a chance that this is indeed a 'lazy bloomer' and I would avoid buying a plant where the number of flowers is disproportionally low to the number of pbulbs. It may well be a swan but in all probability it's a duck.

Nick

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Comments (3)

orchidnick
Original Author
15 years ago
I got a 'second chance offer' at my original price and took it. I asked the seller why there are no more blooms and got this response:

I would say just because these should have been repotted at least a year ago. I think they may dry out a little between waterings.....not real sure. I only have 6 of them and I'm selling 3 or 4 and I'll make several plants out of whats left. They all only have/had 3 or 4 bloom spikes.

What ever, all seem to act similar, but for that price I'm willing to take a chance.

Nick
cjwatson
15 years ago
Nick, I had a Rustic Spots for several years and it was a very willing bloomer; seems to have bloomed twice a year for me. And yes, the flowers do vary quite a bit from seedling to seedling.
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orchidnick
Original Author
15 years ago
That's good to know, I'm looking forward to the plant. It's going to have more than 50 pbulbs and should make a nice display. For $16.50 (my final price) I think I got a bargain. I have a Blc Copper Queen which looks similar and performs nicely.

I was just alerting newbies to watch out for plants which seem to have a ton of leaves but not too many flowers. I have a plant, which my daughter stole, so I can't come up with a name right now, that has about 25 pbulbs. It has 5 front leads, each in bloom with 2 or 3 large purple/lavender fluffy Blc type flowers. A stunning bouquet of flowers. It sends the opposite message, many flowers for the number of leaves.

When shopping at an orchid show or on eBay, I'm suggesting to keep an eye on the flower/leaf ratio and favor plants that have seemingly a lot of flowers for the number of leaves.

Nick