{"id":6237,"date":"2020-01-01T23:14:02","date_gmt":"2020-01-01T23:14:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenescapades.com\/blog\/?p=6237"},"modified":"2024-06-24T04:09:00","modified_gmt":"2024-06-24T04:09:00","slug":"plant-a-day-2020-day-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/gardenescapades.com\/blog\/2020\/01\/01\/plant-a-day-2020-day-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Plant-A-Day 2020 (Day 3) Coelogyne cristata"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

2024 Update \u2014 I describe this plant as a giant. Now, it is four smaller Coelogyne plants after an ambitious division last year, one of which is very healthy and blooming. The remaining three are sad and limping along. I will try to get them going again but if they do not improve by the end of summer, they will find the compost pile\u2013they take up too much room! 6.23.24<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ll highlight a greenhouse veteran for day three\u2013my giant Coelogyne cristata orchid. This plant and I started in a love\/hate relationship after I ordered it off of eBay. In one of my houseplant books, an Australian grower had a giant one of these orchids that covered itself with fragrant bloom every year\u2013so that was the dream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mine grew and bloomed a bit those first few years, but then got shy. It continued to grow, however. I think I\u2019ve had it for about ten years now. I repotted it into a much larger basket about four years ago and it has continued to grow, but still was shy blooming. I got to the point of listing it for sale, I was so frustrated with it. And then, of course, it bloomed beautifully. And it has continued to do so for several years in a row now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is how the plant looks today:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It is over two feet across and has hundreds of pseudobulbs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is it in bloom\u2013photos from last year and the year before:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Care for this plant is still rather hit-or-miss for me. I keep it in the greenhouse all year. It takes a lot of water to keep the pseudobulbs plump in warm weather. I\u2019m lazy about fertilizing it. I just put handfuls of balanced organized fertilizer into the pot once in the spring and again in the summer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most important lesson I\u2019ve learned with this plant is to keep water away from the flowers. They open a pristine, bright white color. Water causes black\/brown spots and also causes them to deteriorate much faster than flowers that have been kept dry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next plans for this plant are to cut off a few back bulbs and pot them separately to see if they will root and grow. This doesn\u2019t seem to be a common orchid around here, so it could be popular at plant sales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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2024 Update \u2014 I describe this plant as a giant. Now, it is four smaller Coelogyne plants after an ambitious division last year, one of which is very healthy and blooming. The remaining three are sad and limping along. I will try to get them going again but if they do not improve by the … Continue reading Plant-A-Day 2020 (Day 3) Coelogyne cristata<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/gardenescapades.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/gardenescapades.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/gardenescapades.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gardenescapades.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gardenescapades.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6237"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/gardenescapades.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6237\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13422,"href":"http:\/\/gardenescapades.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6237\/revisions\/13422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/gardenescapades.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gardenescapades.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gardenescapades.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}