| Psychosis papilio
Psychopsis papillo can be very very tempermental and difficult to grow. You can be doing everything right except one thing and it will promptly die on you. I spent more than 2000 dollars over the years trying to learn to grow it. It died on me even in the tropics where it grows wild.
Finally, the good folks at Carter and Holmes in Newberry, South Carolina told me the secret----Psych. pap does not like plastic pots. They like moist media but not soaking wet and they like nice drainage also. The ones that Carter and Holmes sellls have HUGE blooms(like blooms almost a foot in height). Psych. pap. likes being attached to a stick of sometime if in a very humid atmosphere and if grown in pots---good old georgia clay pots. Otherwise you should try to keep humidity somewhere beween 50-70 per cent. This is usually easy to do if you are growing in a non-greenhouse situation--- if when you cook you boil or steam food when ever possible as well as showering at least once a day. They like early morning sun and afternoon shade or vice versa preferably from the Southeast or Southwest. Fertilize them during bloom times and they will reward you with multiple blooms. NEVER NEVER cut the bloom stalks--- they will not be very happy campers if you do and will pout for years never blooming again. Otherwise blooms will continue to appear and last for long periods---when one bloom drops another will appear.  |