How does reblooming work for Golden Buddha cymbidia?

[yellowcymbidium]

Hi all, first post here, sorry if I'm asking the same question that's been asked a hundred times but when I tried to find the answer through the wiki I couldn't get anything to come up but the overview page...

A friend of mine gave me a yellow cymbidium yesterday. After looking at various photos I believe it's of the "Golden Buddha" variety. Sadly for me, this cymbidium was subjected to a damagingly low temperature while in full bloom. The blossoms are all gradually turning brown and wilting, but it looks like the leaves and bulb weren't affected very much. My question is, once these blossoms are completely dead and gone, what should I expect as far as reblooming? Do I have to subject it to a couple of weeks of cool night-time temps, as I've seen said about phals? If so, how long should I wait before trying this? Will I have to cut back the spikes (there are 4)? Or will new spikes grow as long as I keep it fertilized? I'm a little leery about cutting back, I tried cutting my phal's spike down to just above a node a couple weeks ago to make it branch and the only result was that the entire rest of the spike turned brown and died, whereas before I cut it it had been a healthy green (albeit no blossoms) for months.

Also, how will the lighting I use play into this? I have a "full spectrum" desk lamp trained on it now (I live in a basement unit, so I don't really have much access to natural light) but I'm wondering if I should invest in some kind of light designed specifically for growing plants. I don't know what would be considered a reasonable price for such a thing...

Please, help a sister out!

[Filb]

I personally have not grown cyms because I don't think I can fulfill their requriements.
Here is a cutlure sheet for the genus: AOS Cymbidium Culture Sheet.

The important thing in getting it to rebloom is to fulfill all of its requirements, be that light, humidity, air circulation, water etc.
If you give it the right requirements it will reward you with a bloom spike.

Sorry for the general post; I'm sure someone with experience will come along soon. Until then, I hope this bit of information helps.

[yellowcymbidium]

Thanks for the link to the culture sheet Rachel! I wonder if I'm going to be able to make this work, given that the sheet talks about keeping the cym outdoors for most of the year, and my climate appears to be totally incompatible (too hot in the summers, too cold in the winters). I'm still wondering if a grow lamp would do the trick. Also not sure of the proper way to treat the old bloom spikes once the blossoms are all gone. To cut, or not to cut? The culture sheet is silent on this question.

[katrina]

Your climate is much like mine and I keep all my orchids outside during the warmer months.

They go out in the Spring as soon as the night time temps consistently go above 55 degrees and I bring them back inside in the Fall.

W/Cyms...I leave them out in the Fall until the night time temps drop below 40 degrees. During the cold months they are under HO T5 lights.

Hope that helps.

[orchids4me]

Syndywindy lives in IL. and has cyms. Like Katrina says I do believe syndywindy grows them like that. Hopefully she will chime in on this thread.....

[yellowcymbidium]

HO T5 lights, eh? I did a little poking around online last night trying to figure out what a reasonable price would be for one of those and ended up getting pretty confused. Am I right that I'm going to have to install an overhead fixture to use them? Is there no way to get the equivalent of a desk lamp? How much should I expect to pay?

[Filb]

Yes, the t5 lights require their own fixture. You can jury rig something tho (I used a shoe rack with zip ties). Give this a read: http://www.orchidgeeks.com/forum/orc...uld-do-it.html.

Desk lamps really don't put out the level of light that is significant enough for growing orchids as far as I know. They can be used as supplements to something like those t5 high output lamps, but not by themselves.

I've seen high intensity discharge lamps at my local hydroponics store, but I've no idea how well they work or what the setup requires. Those bulbs are pretty expensive as well though.