Wils. Kolibri

[stephaniac]

That is the name that is on the little stick in the orchid that I bought at Home Depot. It had a bunch of beautiful blooms on it when we first bought it. I brought it home, put it in compot and gave it some of the special orchid food, all by the directions on the insert thingie. I'm worried that it's not getting enough water. I have it in a pt that has the little bowl thing under it, is that the rightkind of pot to have it in? It looks really dry and almost all (all but two) of he bloos have fallen off...help? I love the plant, it's beautiful, and I've never seen one like it before and don't want it to die, it wasn't very cheap. /=

Thanks in advance!
Stephania

[jerrymeola]

Wilsonara are an integenetic hybrid of three familes in the oncidium alliance.
Cochioda x Odontoglossum x Oncidium

Flower life on most oncidium alliance are from 8-12 weeks. When you buy from a home depot you never know how old the flowers were when you bought it. When I sell flowers like this that are more than 4 weeks old I inform the customer and discount heavily. The best you can do since these store employess do not know anything is to try to buy plants where only a couple of buds are open and most are closed.

These plants can take a fair amount of water. Many growers, myself included, like to grow them in sphagnum moss to keep them wetter. If you are using a dryer medium water more often.

Your fertilizer should be a balanced one 10-10-10 or 20-20-20 avoid the high nitrogen fertilizers 30-10-10 which are only good for old bark and avoid the 'bloom boost' types high in phospate like 15-35-13

Expect some spotting on the ends of the leaves and some browning even to where the leaf falls off. You should see new leaves emerging throughtout the spring and early summer. As long as there is new growth the plant is healty. Oncidium alliance can lose a lot of leaves and still be growing healty.

They like a fair amount of shade and check for heat stress in July and August. It often pays to move them to a cooler area in the hotest months.

[stephaniac]

Thank-you very much. I hope that I can save it, the 21 month old was outside yesterday and knocked it over. I had set it out there while it was shady in the backyard.....but I quickly repotted it, and am gonna print out your info and hopefully that will help. Thanks again!

you say in your post you brought it home and put it in compot? did you mean compost? i'm hoping not, there are lots of things orchids can be potted in but i'm not too sure about compost or any soil for that matter.

[stephaniac]

It's called orchid compost, it's not soil, it's like wood chips and stuff....I'll have to look at the bag for the right name for it....

[jerrymeola]

stepaniac
your orchid mix should be fine. It is a dry mix and I would usualy recommend something that holds more water, but since it is potted and dumped once keep it this way and water more often.

The confusion in your orciginal post was that you said a compot which in orchids means a 'community pot' for 10-20 baby orchids. Certainly this is not what you did.

[Cynthia, Prescott, AZ]

You have to be a little careful when buying an 'orchid' mix. There is a fairly fine mix designed for cymbidiums and other simi-terrestrials, and a somewhat chunky mix for epiphytes. With all the different variation on orchid mixs these days, it may not be obvious what kind of orchid would do best in one of these oddball mixes. The best thing is to actually measure the dampness of the mix with time (bamboo barbeque skewer), and if you find the mix is not drying out in an appropriate amount of time, repot again into something else. Cynthia, Prescott, AZ