Cymbidium question

Originally Posted by DEC

I have 3 cymbidiums that have been growing great all summer and they look healthy and fine but none of them show any signs of blooming. I feed them weakly weekly but still no sign of buds. Any thoughts or suggestions? They are under a screen that cuts the sun about 40% and they get full sun untill about 3 pm. I just took a light meter reading and at 11am they were getting 5400n fc of light. The humidity here in Florida is usually very high. I'm guessing they need some cool nights to get some buds going.

You are exactly right about the cool nights. My cymbidium was my first major orchid and I asked for - and got- a lot of advice about it. Geoff, aka, Dorsetman, is a particular expert on cyms and an absolute fount of information. Anyway, you may have some trouble getting cool enough nights in FLA to get it to spike. (I guess I should first point out that the new, smaller, warmth-tolerant cyms aren't quite as temperamental as the standards - I don't know which you have.) I live in Atlanta, where nights start getting cool at the end of October or so, and I don't expect to see a spike on it until well into November, if at all. Cyms are just as happy when it's 40 degrees outside, so be forewarned. They're tough because they like it quite cool but very bright during the day, and they need a good 20 degree drop in temp at night. If mine spikes, it will be my first, so good luck to both of us!

Unless it is a "warmth tolerant" cymbidium, it needs cool/cold nights to establish spikes. My Chuns Ruby is in flower ( which I will be posting soon ) It is a warmth growing cym. Even so mine can take the cold weather...down to freezing/almost freezing. Good luck...Betty :-)

I have a few large cymbidiums and they too are very healthy and show a lot of growth. However, they have been hit or miss with blooms.
Sometimes they all bloom with several inflorescences per plant, sometimes none would bloom.

From what I have been told, in addition to their high light requirements they also need to experience cool nights when the new pseudobulbs are just sprouting. This tells the new pseudobulbs that they should start producing flower meristems. The new pseudobulbs are somehow "programmed" to bloom or not bloom at the very early stages of development.

I think the issue with my local conditions is timing. Most of my cymbidium's new growths occur in the summer, where our nights rarely drop below 80F. And during the winter, we do get very cool or cold nights but the cymbidiums produce very few new psuedobulbs (or none at all).

I know several people in the San Deigo and Long Beach area who grow cymbidiums and they get beautiful flowers year round. I am thinking that because they have the benefit of consistently cool nights year round, the probability of pseudobulb sprouts being exposed to cool nights is very high.

Here, we get spikes up to 3 times a year, because the conditions are great for them. They like it coolish, but i have seen them growing in greenhouses at around 25C before. They need it cool all day and all night for around a month to flower successfully, and who told you john they need high light? The plants dont like high light, it only influences the colour of the blooms really. Darker blooms like it light, while lighter blooms like it shaded, otherwise they screw up. Put them in a cool corner of your garden, and either hook a snow-freeze machine to a fan, or just use the fan to cool the air a bit around the orchids

I had a chat with a nursery that I got my Cym from, her advice was to me give them as much sun as possible and feed consistantly... I now have 5 little pseudobulbs which willl develop all summer here and flowers hopefully by winter its amazing how much new growth I find ... Our balcony is north-eastfacing it recieves light from 6AM till 6PM think thats why its so happy there.