Now these two Cymbidiums blooming were achieved by leaving them out until they had three nights of hard frost. Yes I am aware that many books state that they should not go below 7 degrees celsius at night...but I tend to ignore the accepted rules because everyone writes about what they do which is just copying what someone else has already done.
So after first surprising a few people at leaving them outside at such cold temperatures and with frost on at least three nights I have now got them to flower for the first time in several years, well since purchase in fact!
Well at long last the flowers are slowly appearing and the first lot of buds I spotted have been overtaken. One of the two spikes on one Cymbidium has had about three buds open with a few left on one spike, The other spike has had none of the buds open as yet.
The other one is turning out to be a red Cymbidium which I thought was a Lilac Cymbidium that today I started to recall a vision of throwing that particular Cymbidium out?! Odd, but then I do have this damned condition that cuses short term memory loss. Mind you it would have been over a year ago I thrrew it out.
I was expecting one of the three Cymbidiums that were orihginally one plant to be the one with the bigger buds but these are canary yellow flowers whereas these are clearly red. I purchased the two now flowering at the exact same time, oddly enough?!
I did a little video and will do another when all the buds have opened..
On Boxng Day evening I noticed some large buds among my Orchids than confused me because they looked both really large and very alien to me! I had never seen these buds before!
As I followed the spike down to its base I realised it came from one of my Cymbidiums?!
Oddly there was another pot with a curiously bulblous growth on it I thought may turn out to be a collection of buds and it seemed to be coming along very slowly.
A couple of days later I then realised I was not paying close enough attention because on the far said of the poot from where I thought buds may emerge another lot DID emerge, so yes may well be two spikes on a second Cymbidium flowering?!
Now I have no looked through them all buit just in case people were not paying attention, errr or I forgot to mention it in a post on here or my YouTube account and you are now wondering what I did to get them to flower?
Well someone noticed in December that my Cymbidiums were outside still! IN fact I told everyone that I was fed up with them not flowering or look tatty that I have a theory I am putting to the test and that they can think of it as a ' Kill of Flower Cure'. The theory was based on this common belief that the flowering is triggered by large changes in day and night temperatures being ... well WRONG! Lol!
They normally came back indoors in October or even early November but this year they was out until just a few days before Christmas day itself and i case you do not live in the UK, this included several nights that included a hard frost.
Yes I said a HARD FROST!
Umm I did say 'Kill of Flower Cure'?
Yes well my understanding of animals led me to the fact that the commonly held belief about Cymbidiums could be wrong and as everyone mostly just re-writes what everyone else states about Orchids and sticks to 'the rules' the truth never gets discovered.
I will give you a clue that it gets damn cold in the Himalayas and I also have a Vanda coerulea that I also know can take cold and have seen them covered in snow!
Still have the big reedy Cymbidium, six of the Phalaenopsis and a few others, the rest either were stolen or died because of a selfish twat who need to see professional help.
