We have an old-timer - oops, I mean "experienced grower" in our orchid club that says
"It's a reliable bloomer - it blooms once every 25 years!"
Tee-hee - sorry that didn't really help.
I've just learned to accept that some plants love my conditions and bloom like clockwork, while others simply do not like my conditions, and will not. We pass on the vegetating ones to other who may have the correct conditions, and get more of what we think will like it at our ghouse.
We kill phals regularly, but funny, we can get other species, even some "rare" and some considered "difficult" to bloom. We've brought a few "back from the dead" but then again, sent others to the grave.
We love a challenge plant for the challenge, we love one that blooms reliably for the blooms, though either can become a bore after a while, and take up valuable bench space.
Good luck ~ :-)

Totally agree with garlic, eventually nonbloomers wear out their welcome...

This seems to be coming up a bit lately. On the OSF CJ posted about 3 plants that she can't get to bloom, while others requiring similar conditions grow just fine. For the most part, its suggested that if its not blooming, its not getting what it needs as far as culture. However, one of hers, a vanda, is a hybrid of a vanda thats world renouned for being incredibly difficult to bloom in any given environment. So sometimes it really is genetics.

I'd agree with the expert on this. Nature is usually forced to choose between reproduction and self preservation (just look at roses: Huge attractive reproductive organs, little in the way of self defense). Giving it what it needs to keep it fat and happy tips the scales in favor of self preservation. Stress/winter rests, less water, less fertilizer...SOMETHING to stress the poor thing and make it fear for its life.

Also, just a thought: exactly how much light are you giving it? My L. anceps never bloomed unless the leaves got a nice shade of purple. If superbiens gets this as well, even higher light is in order. If not, well try burning the thing in vanda light and see how it likes that.

Lastly, How do you treat it over winter? This harkens back to the stressing...

Can you clarify SKC and what its a synonym for?

SKC is a synonym for SCK (Schomburkia) when you have incipient Alzheimers or are borderline dyslexic which ever came first. All of my L anceps have been in full sun from sunrise to sunset with no relief whatsoever for years and they love it. You cannot do this with any other Laelia that I know off.

I treat it too nice, no Winter rest etc, but its going to bloom now so we'll see what next year brings.

Nick

LMAO thanks, that was my laugh for the day!

At least you got one, thats something! One down, 28 to go!

Nick wrote, I never change tags to keep up. I agree.

I always keep my plants labeled as they were when acquired. If information is "trashed", it's gone forever. "Old" information may become valuable knowledge in future decades. It isn't necessary to "adopt" the new names. Someone gave a LOT of thought to those names.

The people who change genera/species names? They retire and they expire!

--Stitz--

Start abusing it. Slap it around, throw it against the wall. Sit it right next to the compost heap and forget about it. Don't water and certainly stop feeding it.

Do or die!

Jane

I think the abbreviation is Schom. Most grow too big to cart to shows etc.

The only related orchid i have is a Schom/Cattleya cross and it is treated as Jane says....out in the weather next to Den. speciosum. The leaves on the Schom/Cattleya cross look dreadful, but the plant flowers every year.

As for the name changes, i am ignoring most of them, but the day of reckoning must come.

I have 3 types of 'Schomburgias'. A Laelia, a Laeliacattleya and several 'real' Schomburgias. Both the L and the LC are called superbiens and bloom just like a SCK with 4' to 5' long stalks and a bunch of pink/lav flowers. If you only looked at the flowers you would think they are SCKs.

The bulbs are totally different though. SCKs have hollow cane like structures, in nature these are the homes of ant colonies which actually defend the plant. The L and the LC even though they are called 'superbiens' have Catt like pbulbs. I don't understand the connection as the flowers look exactly the same but the plants are obviously different. I have seen the 'superbiens' called all three names, L, LC and SCK. Any one know how these plants are related?

Nick

Hi
Have a similar experience with terete Vandas. They grow like weeds in every situation. Some finally grew through the roof of the SH . They amost exploded with flowers . So I'm thinking not enough sun so attached some to a palm trunk ,good growth but plant looks on deaths door lol. This year those growing on a Cattley guava in the yard in dense shade are flowering as well as those in full sun.
But the plant looks ten times healthier .
Was also surpised at those growing through the roof since they experienced lows of around 33 for a couple of hours. They didn't even slow down while those in pots placed in the warm room have not flowered since!!!!
Certainly as much art as science in growing orchids lol gary

To straighten out the Schomburgkias, this is what is currently in fashion. The hollow-bulbed ones have to moved to their only genus of Myrmecophila. The non-hollow-bulbed ones stay as Schomburgkia.

The L. superbiens is a Schomburgkia, not a Laelia. I have it as a parent in the hybrid Schombocattleya Cholletiana (Schom superbiens alba x mossiae wageneri alb), sometimes wrongly called Lc Cholletiana. This is a huge plant I grew from a small seedling which hasn't bloomed yet, but is still within normal bloom expectations for its age.

As another point on non-bloomers, I tend to like intergeneric hybrids which sometimes have difficulty growing and blooming because the parent genera are fairly distant genetically. The two examples I posted up at OSF were a Paravandrum hybrid (Paraphalaenopsis x Ascocentrumx Vanda) and a Doricentrum hybrid (Doritis x Ascocentrum). A very few people have bloomed these, some have tossed them into the compost heap. I am waiting to see. They have been moved around to all different types of environment; more light, less light, more water, less water, warmer, cooler, etc., and still no blooms. They were mature plants when I got them, but with no sign of prior blooming even back then, five years ago. As long as I have space, they can stay. But it may be that these are genetically doomed to extinction.

Of course, being a glutton for punishment, I will continue with these various oddball intergenerics because most bloom out. I am currently hovering like a momma bear over a compot of Angraecom didieri x Asctm miniatum, about three years to bloom.

Did you dutifully move it up to a bigger pot size as it grew? I had a dendrobium nobile that I did this with and it had many many canes but it never bloomed. Finally I told it bloom or die and put it back on the shelf and did not pot it up. It grew so potbound that the roots and canes were hanging over the edge of the pot. That winter it was so covered with blossoms that you couldn't see the leaves.

Holy cow where you ge that didieri cross cj??

Thanks CJ that explains a lot. I will at least double label some of them as what I currently have does not make sense.

Nick

You're welcome, Nick. It's all I can do to keep up with the 'important' changes as opposed to the arbitrary ones that are constantly being thrown at us.

terp, Botanica put the mini-compot up on Ebay as a buy-it-now, which I did. They also had up an individual potted seedling -- fractionally larger than the biggest one in the compot -- which went for bidding. They may have more if you e-mail them.

As for where they came from originally, before they folded, Hoosier was doing some of these odd crosses with Angs, and this could have been of their flasks... or maybe not, lol.

thats great, can't wait to see a picture! Guess I better take your advice and find me a goat...
Lori

Get 2 goats, Lori. I decided to move it as the developing spike needed more head room and in the process broke it offffffffff.......

I tool around with a very convenient handicap tag on my car, not because I'm handicapped but because my son in law is an orthopedic surgeon. Do they have MENTAL HANDICAP TAGS for a clutz like me? The only good thing about it is that at my age next year will be here so fast it will seem like tomorrow.

You are aware that life is like a roll of toilet paper, the closer it gets to the end the faster it rolls.

Maybe I should post 'crying, moaning, groaning and venting, Episode 9.' Or are we up to 10?

Nick

CJ - I'm so glad you got one of those...I saw someone auctioning off angraecum didieri x ascocentrum garayi on Ebay, also a remnant of the hoosier legacy. I was nearly tempted, but they would have probably perished in my conditions. I'll be waiting eagerly for your plants to bloom!

Thanks for reminding me, Calvin! The compot I got was the didieri x Asctm garayi, not miniatum. Hoping for a pale peach Ang-looking flower someday.

Last year I had gotten two seedlings of Angraecum didieri x Vascostylis Pine River from Hoosier. Killed both dead as a doornail within a couple months. This time I am watering very sparingly, which goes just the opposite of what you want to do with wee seedlings.

On the "reluctant bloomer" topic, I have had a C. warscewiczii since about 2003. It grows like a weed, and I finally divided it into 3 pieces last year from a 14" pot that was bursting apart. Each division had about 30 pseudobulbs.
To date, none of them have bloomed, though all are growing/going nuts with growth.
I've followed the cultural instructions at Chadwick Orchids (I see it has since been taken down); in short, everything from desert to mud, sun to full shade, food, starvation, abuse and neglect.
No joy.
I am sure that when it blooms, it will be simply spectacular.
Cheers - Nancy

I have a Laelia Pulcherrima that bloomed very little until I discovered that it needs tons of light. I stopped treating it with care and put it out side where it got like 6 hours of direct sun light a day. It exploded with flowers this summer I can post a picture later. I water it whenever I remember

Nick, I can't believe you broke the spike after waiting so long! But we've all been there and done that. I'll go google for goats now...
Lori