Coelogyne pandurata....amount of light?

[katrina]

I'm hoping someone can help me with this. I bought a mounted Coel pandurata about 2 months ago and at the time I understood that they liked a great deal of light. So, I put it w/my other high light plants....an East facing porch that receives direct morning sun from the time the sun comes up until about 10am. After 10am that area is bright but there's no direct sun on any of the plants. In less than a month the leaves began to get really, really light...before too long they looked more yellow than green...almost chartreuse in color. Thinking the plant was getting too much sun I moved it to a shadier location. The leaves now appear to be returning to their 'less yellow' color.

My problem...I was doing a bit more reading up on this plant...I read in order to get blooms this plant does need bright, bright light so now I'm wondering if that leaf color was normal.

Any ideas, suggestions or advice?

Thanks so much
Kat

[zainal abidin]

Dont worry Catrina we always learn from the mistake and then it will help us. Original habitat of this C. Pandurata like in my country they are hanging very hard to the tree barks always very high from the ground. They are happy with the shadier place, light roughly about 50 to 70% with the humidity more than 70 to 80 %. When the condition matched than you can see the flowers emerge from the young shoot.
The leaf color is not normal by right should be light green and not yellow probably too much sun as you said. For your information C. Pandurata is very huge plant once they mature the bulb would be 3 X 5 inch. and begin to bloom. Please put your plant under the shade try to maintain the humidity as I mention above . Good luck. Catrina.

[katrina]

Thanks the info Zainal!

I'm glad I went w/my insticts and moved it to a shadier spot. The leaves are definitely looking much better....I'll watch the humidity on it.

Thanks again!
Kat

[CATONE]

I purchased this plant at a show in the north east in the end of March. Remember I live in the north east.From March to May plant did not get a lot of light. May it went out side with the rest of my plants.It is getting half day of light. This is the important part. When purchased plant was rapped in a coconut type fiber, with 4 bulbs making up the plant. I now have 2 new stems from one bulb.If a flower is going to come it will be from one of those stems. I soak this plant, because of the coconut fiber wrapping everday and fertliser once a week. Plant is doing great. If only I had more time for outside growing. My plants will be coming in 2 weeks. I also have Coelogyne zurowetzii purchased from the same vendor in March and wrapped in that same coconut fiber and treated the same as pandurata. That plant has buds and us less something happens I might get to see them open.

[gavstang]

Zain has given really good advice, if I could add, panduratas also love more fertilisation, they need bright light not direct sunlight (saying that very few orchids want direct sunlight)..high humidity is needed for it to thrive but be careful when u see the new shoot developing as bud blast is quite common.

[paphioboy]

With pandurata, if you want to grow massive bulbs and gigantic leaves, shade it and apply loads of fertiliser. If you want to bloom it, give as much as light as possible without burning and provide a short dry rest (keep dryish after bulbs mature and new shoots appear). High P fertiliser also helps.