Orchid, Oncidesa Gower Ramsey

I cannot prove my Oncidium is this one, but the flowers are the same or very similar. It grows well and blooms for me, who barely knows a...Read Morebout orchids. It has one long spike right now with two dozen blooms- despite my having rotted all the older roots this summer with a bad potting job. I keep my plants outside until near frost.

Five years ago I split up a Gower Ramsey and got about five plants. I gave several away and kept two. The one I put in a small pot bloome...Read Mored within two years and is now leaping out of the pot with pseudobulbs now six inches about the pot. It blooms at least once/year. The one I put in a large pot hasn't bloomed at all; it is simply growing into the pot. Perhaps they like to be potbound. They also do like a cold snap; I have them outdoors on a covered porch May to October. Lots of light, occasional water, precious little fertilizer. If you plant them in clay pots the roots fuse to the clay and you have to smash the clay when repotting. I suggest benign neglect and an undersized pot.

I bought this plant from a friend whose family has an orchid growing business in New Jersey. Sadly it has never rebloomed, although it h...Read Moreas produced copiuous pseudobulbs, which I am in process of dividing /repotting. I think my house does not provide sufficient nightime temperature drop to encourage blooming as I have no cold area to put them in to mimic seasonal change. I may seek out some orchid growers in my area (Baltimore, MD) for counsel. A friend suggested hanging the pot in a tree for the summer for heat (spraying with hose to provide reliable humidity), but I fear infection from red spider mites. I put phalaenopsis outside in the shade of the tree last year and it has since withered and died.

I've had one for a couple of years, and it's been growing really well, but has never re-bloomed. It's spending the summer outside this y...Read Moreear, so we'll see what happens!