The little plant that could!

[Bob in Albany N.Y.]

Sorry but you have to listen to the story first. In Oct. of 2006 I made arrangements with a grower in Hawaii to grow out some flasks for me. I had Sam of Orchid Inn send 8 flasks to them. I was suppose to pay a set fee per year per plant once I had them returned to me. I know this Orchid Nursery does literally thousands of flask per year and are reputable. Every time I asked about them they said they are growing real slow and blamed it on the size of the plants coming out of flask. Finally in Nov. of 2009 I gave up and just asked for all remaining plants back. They sent about 20 very small seedlings back. Most looked like they were just removed from flask, yet they were not. They however apologized and didn't charge me for the growing. I was very disappointed to say the least. Luckily about 1/3 of the plants where the roth 'Excelsior' FCC/AOS x 'Red Glory' which I believe may have been awarded since the flasks were made. The clone 'Re Glory' that is. The other largest group was the Paph Candon Gold Spirit, which is concolor 'Walking Tall' x Norito Hasagawa 'Vist Del Mont' AM/AOS. These plants were so small very few if any of the returned plants even had their own two inch pot. Well to my surprise the Cando Gold Spirit with a leaf span of just three and a half inches threw up a single flower, while residing with another plant of the same cross in a single two inch pot. Only problem is, that it bloomed and turned out to be concolor. I checked my records and indeed I did send them a flask of concolor. So I'm assuming the rest of them will also bloom as as concolor but who know for sure until they bloom. Any ways, here is the little plant that could.

Please don't ask me the name of the grower because I've come to terms with it and believe that possible a worker didn't do their job or just liked the plants so much that they took them home.

 

[Candace]

Sorry for your mishap, Bob. I guess I wouldn't have thought to send paph flasks to HI. I hope this doesn't put a halt to your breeding experiments. There are plenty of reputable flaskers closer to you, I'm sure. It's always live and learn, isn't it?

 

[GuRu]

Bob, that's an interesting story and a pretty concolor!!
Hopefully we will see flower photos of the other remaining plants very soon!

 

[KyushuCalanthe]

Hmm, well, too bad about your experience. Cute little concolor at any rate!

 

[etex]

It must have been very disappointing!! The bloom is as cute as can be!

 

[Bob in Albany N.Y.]

It may be cute, but it's not the semi-round or round shape that I'm looking for. On the other hand, it has a nice strong, self supporting stem.

 

[SlipperFan]

Sad story. I hope you will have what you want with one of the others.

 

[SlipperKing]

That's one expensive concolor Bob! I'm curious Bob, why didn't you try growing out the flasks youself?

 

[JeanLux]

Sad story, but tough little bloom!!! Jean

 

[Bob in Albany N.Y.]

Rick, I didn't trying growing out the flasks myself due to my very poor record with flasks. Plus I figured they would grow them out 2 or 3 times faster than I could in New York. This year I decided to try flasks one last time. I bought a flask off of e-bay of a white complex as my trial flask. Then Springwater Orchids offered me 2 very inexpensive flask to try, which I went for. Then I went to an orchid even and saw a mini flask from Woodstream that held interest and had hugh plants in. Now on top of that I bought into a 1/24 share of Nick's close out and got some more little guys. All has been going well with all of these flasks. The oldest one arrived in April of this year. It seems like I just need to pay alot more attention to them this time. I also put them in these very low 1 and 1/2 inch net pots (which really weren't designed for orchids, and can't get any more of). This is forcing me to water them alot more but the are drying out faster and all looks very good.

 

[etex]

Bob, I am glad you are trying flasks again!! Started getting into it this year. It's so much fun learning the habits of different types of orchids and watching them from babies.
Springwater is great,isn't he? In April,very inexpensively,bought a flask from him of P Wellbecon. The plants are doing well with a little extra TLC. I have the whole flask in a 4" pot small bark mix with lots of peanuts on the bottom.

 

[Ross]

I figured it was only a matter of time before you gave seedlings a shot, again. Given your record of good growing, I'm sure you'll solve the challenge of growing from flask.

 

[NYEric]

I have a hard time w/ flasks also. I'm still working on some though and have to be careful and probably should pot them up individually. Did any others of what should be concolor x Norito Hasegawa make it? Hint hint!

 

[Bob in Albany N.Y.]

Eric, I have another 3 or 4 labeled as such but have little to no confidence that they are indeed Paph Candon Gold Spirit. I'll need to grow them up and bloom them out to be sure as to what they are. I couldn't in good conscience sell somthing that I'm not sure is correct. They are all about the same size of about 3 inch leaf span. Only time will tell.

 

[Justin]

Bob that is great you are having success with your latest flasks. You got them past the hard part of deflasking, so now you just need to give them a little more day-to-day attention then your adult plants to get them through their first year.

I haven't added any flasks lately. That is due to both money spent on divisions also because I know i will have my hands full in another couple years when my seedlings start getting bigger. I love growing flasks out though, so maybe next year i will pick up one or 2...