growing time

[greensvideo]

okay, here's my clueless orchid question of the day: which orchids grow the fastest/slowest? cats, vanda, dend, phal, slipper, etc. how many years from the time they hit individual pots to flowering size?
i assume the growth for individual types varies by time of year. my dend and phals seem to be going great guns. while they look healthy, the vandas, onc. and cats are doing next to nothing. i just bought a few slippers, so have no idea about how they will do. so, which types grow the fastest/slowest?

[Janet]

Mini-catts flower pretty quickly in my experience. My guess is that maybe smaller varieties of other genera also flower more quickly than larger varieties, but I could be wrong.

Janet

[bench72]

from my experience with Paphs, the 'Maudiae-type' (the ones with thin mottled leaves) tend to grow pretty fast, and from seedlings, you can get flowers in 2 years. Then the normal green coloured leaves (section Paphiopedilum) are the next fastest. The slowest are the multifloral.

Now having said all that... within the multiflorals, species Paph philippinense is pretty fast growing and many of it's hybrids take on this trait.

A good one to start with is Paph Honey, because it picks up the ease of culture of it's two parents, Paph philippinense and Paph primulinum. I had a plant that bloomed on a 150cm leaf span only a year after purchasing the seedling.

Also, On a different Genus -
I have seen some Dend kingianum flowering in the flask..

[Halloamey]

Phalaenopsis are the fastest of all of these if you consider the time required for flowering. Typically Phalaenopsis hybrids flower within the first year after deflasking. Most of the plants we buy are roughly 14 to 16 months of age.