Laelia jongheanna

I've also seen clones that are sort of reluctant to bloom.

 

So I’ve tried everything with jongheanna with no luck for the last 5 years!

I had a compot from a friend and the plants I kept for myself bloomed the very same year after mounting and then never again! I now have them hanging in the sunniest spot in the greenhouse and no shade cloth at all. I also do the drier winter routine where they see low-mid 50’s at night. Growth looks good (light green with slight anthocyanin tint in the leaves).

So maybe I throw out the books...put them back in a shadier, uniformly-moist area...giving them the same conditions as when they were in compot? Or maybe I just start calling them Laelia again?

 

I'm sure mine would do better if a little more protected from winter chill. (Probably would get bigger flowers/more of them) I wouldn't say that I grow them particularly well. But they're pretty reliable... hang out on the patio, get winter nights into the low 40's F and occasionally cooler. Winter days rarely colder than 60 deg F,usually more like high 60's. Summer highs from mid 80's F into the 90's, summer lows typically from mid 60's F to occasionally low 70's in August. Filtered sun. Basket with large bark seems to work best. I have one mounted and it's aggressively growing on the mount but I suspect that eventually it's going to be dropped into a basket. There seems to be a tendency, when mounted, to change direction and start growing off the mount, hence the basket. (I think of it as a 3-dimensional mount) Buds are big and fat... figure a week or two to bloom. So maybe just move to coastal southern California?

 

Yeah...I thought of moving out there once or twice. Andy offered me a job once...but there is the whole thing about affordability of real estate .