paph collection culture help please

[MoreWater]

I’m still pretty new to paphs, and looking at the various seedlings I started with a couple of years ago, some are definitely shrinking and others are – to my surprise – actually growing. I’m trying to get a better handle on these things (again), and the mix of stuff I have is making it difficult to wrap my head around..... Some help would be appreciated.

Today, I stared at the trays of paphs and phals on my kitchen floor and noticed the following:

Growing
woluwense (niveum x roth)
harold koopowitz (malipoense x roth)
ken ichi takaya (supardii x philip)

Shrinking
deception II (niveum x delenatii)
wossner kolarmi (kolopakingii x armeniacum)
deperle (delenatii x primulinum)

Is it possible to draw conclusions from this basic observation? I've been treating them all the same.

Deperle and deception II are literally fewer fans than when I got them, although the live ones look fairly decent....

Maybe there is a characteristic of roths that make them easier for me? (the two niveum crosses are doing very differently)

The most common complaints I get from the plants here are (1) too hot and (2) too dry, so those would be the first considerations.

I've also got a bunch of other seedlings, and John got me into complex paph thingies recently so I'm now staring at those and wondering how they will do.......

 

[Jon in SW Ohio]

I've always found roth/multi dominant hybrids more tolerant of conditions than say parvi and brachy dominant ones. Many roth/multi hybrids will grow well on a windowsill with no special treatment so long as you don't rot the roots or crown/leaves. Parvis and brachys on the other hand will languish due to dehydration, or root loss due to the low humidity and too much moisture at their roots right next to them. In general, the environment parameters for sucess are much narrower with say niveum than they are with rothschildianum. Some will adapt to your conditions, some you have to adapt your conditions to.

We must dive deeper though. When you say the plants have fewer fans, how did this come to be? Did they die off leaf by leaf? Crown/basal rot? Whole fan shriveling/drooping? The steps the plant took from then until now could speak a great deal of what went wrong.

Jon
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[NYEric]

Check for scale on the leaves, repot and wash all the salts from fertilizers off the roots, pump up the volume!!:crazy:

 

[MoreWater]

thanks - that's very helpful info. Species-specific cultural info is difficult enough to come by - general observations are even more scarce.

Scale - no. Fert salts - probably.

This is what the Deception II looks like now. If you click, you should see the two fans in Jan 2005 - both of those are dead and the current green stuff is new. I think there is not much root underneath so I'll be unpotting and giving it a different potting medium soon.... From what you've said, I'm tempted to try s/h as that would be the only sure way for me to keep the mix reasonably watered. (Not reminding myself "more water" all the time for no reason.)

 

[Greenpaph]

Looks like the spent growth just died off. This is common. However, it looks like it has been in this pot for a couple of years? Looks like to to transplant.

 

[Heather]

Agree with Greenpaph and the salts....more water, MoreWater! : )

 

[MoreWater]

but then how do people manage multigrowth plants of things like this? It's like the phrags... my old growths die off, but then there are people with 20+ growth plants......

 

[MoreWater]

oh, and another thing. If it had 2 growths about 20 months ago, I should have more now....

but yeah, I don't think pests or rot etc. Just bad culture.

 

[Heather]

Depends on the species I think....My besseaes die off like crazy! No multi growths (over two) except dalessandroi.

 

[Rick]

Humidity and airflow can make a big difference on the rate of growth, and the rate that old growths will die back without starting multiple new growths.

You mentioned growing indoors where air humidity is often less than 50% due to heating or air conditioning. This is too low for good long term care of paphs. It should be 70% or more most of the time.

 

[NYEric]

I think that Antec Labs went to all Diatomite for their Paphs. And these people know Paphs. Makes it easy to retain moisture. Also Leaves on old growths do die off. It appears, to me, that some water probably sat in the leaf crowns and that along with other factors led to their demise. E.