Growing Cymbidiums (Poll)

[smwboxer]

I voted "blooms like crazy". Not really fair though since the only one I own is Cymbidium ensifolium.

[1buzz]

I bought my first Cymbidium here in Fort Worth Texas last Easter. I feel in love with the beautiful flowers and the leaves and so I repotted it and put it in my Greenhouse during the growing season.Everybody told me it wouldn't make it because of the fact that at the time it sets it 's spikes in August 1-September 15 there is no time that the night temperature gets down to the 50 degrees (F). So I poured ice and sometimes just cold ice water on it a lot at night during this period. (A friend from Adelaide Australia which has similar weather patterns as Fort Worth gave me the idea) And wow on Jan 2 2009 look what appeared. Only one spike and four flowers but I was thrilled beyond belief.I have bought several more and in hopes of getting more spikes and more flowers to come up this year I am going to move it out of the greenhouse into a place where it will get more morning sun and more air. I have also changed my Fertilizer Regime in a big way (Again from friend in Adelaide). So here's hoping.

[Diamond]

Here also it is usual to put frozen water some months before the winter. The commercial cultivators also usually take the plants to cold mountainous regions to flower. My 3 never flowered again, but I keep on trying.

[Dail]

1Buzz, Ted and Rodney - Your plants are awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rodney, those blooms are just absolutely gorgeous.

[Gin]

Here is one of mine in bloom now it has 3 spikes the one is open the others not far behind . Red Baker 'Benjamin' Gin

[autrevie]

I tell people that I can grow cymbidiums very well in Houston - getting lush growth even from standards. This is usually met with surprise, and then I mention that lush growth doesn't mean they bloom!
Cym. Golden Elf (ensifolium x Enid Haupt) is the most commonly mentioned cymbidium grown and bloomed regularly along the Gulf coast, but there are many others that bloom well here. Cym. sinense and its hybrids, for instance, do well; my favorite hybrid among them is Cym. Nut (Red Beauty x sinense). Nut is great! Tall, strong, erect spikes with large flowers, either rose-red or more commonly striped rose-red. Commonly grown clone is 'H&R' and it has received several AOS awards (under that clonal name and perhaps other clonal names..., but I digress).
Other great cymbidiums for this warm, humid climate are the Indian strap-leaved species, such as Cym. aloifolium, bicolor, and finlaysonianum (the type species for the genus). Cym aloifolium is starting to bloom here now.
You have to keep these warm in the winter for a good bloom the following year. They cannot take the cold chill we give thin-leaved cymbidiums.

[deeann]

I have had these 2 cymbidium orchids for 6-8 months now. Have had to re-pot them already, put them into clay pots. One has started to fill out real good, the other one doesn't seem to want to " grab hold "yet.

[coeruleo]

i gave away most of my cymbidiums, they got too enormous and i was bored with them, no challenge at all here in los angeles. i bought a small one last year, and it is just starting to spike, without really trying. you can go to the trouble of the high bloom fert oct-feb and hi-growth april to sept fertlizer routine, or just give miracle grow, or just ignore them. they flower every year. but they become enormously overgrown monsters after a few years. if you want to keep them manageable, divide almost every year. and they grow back from a single pbulb really easily. people pass them around and trade them here. they are almost like a native plant, but not really from here. (i had to google that, just to fact check myself and make sure). they now have a lot of chinese varieties, much smaller and warmer growing, and scented usually. they can still live outside though too. these guys all do drop buds if you bring them inside. the flowers last for a while, so always wait until all are open to move them, and they will do well. to buy one of these, they need to be spectacular. the boring ordinary ones you see everywhere for sale just don't catch my eye, i've had them all. no whites, no pinks, no lime greens for me. i want golden orange with red spots and and green stripes! or golden yellow with red splashes....... they are out there, but harder to find. if i had a back yard, i'd have these everywhere, but space is limited, so i tell myself no... but i notice they do help to shade the other orchids, so i might get some smaller ones to hang in the trellis as a natural sunblock for the vandas. the one i have now shades an epi pretty well. outside, the flowers on the old fashioned 'standard' ones last so long you have to hose the dust off of them. you can have a couple of these and have almost half the year, some bloom earlier and some bloom later. i used to live in the valley, and we got frost, and they never batted an eye. and they took 115 degree heat in a courtyard in intense bright light. no problem. they do need PERFECT drainage though, must repot every other year if they sit where they get rained on. our rain can disolve redwood bark nuggets. if the medium breaks down, your roots die and you can kill them. that is the only way i've ever heard of anyone killing them. the one i have has oyster mushrooms (maybe) growing in the pot with it.

[Xara]

I only have one but it takes up half of one BIG window. Fortunately it's very decorative even without flowers, because I don't think I'll ever get it to bloom again (tried for a while). I've been told it needs really cold night temperatures for awhile in order to get it started, but I just don't have any cool (though above freezing) places to put it at night. And I don't really have the time to move this huge plant around all the time anyway, though it would constitute a probably healthy workout :-).

[catttan]

In the hot tropics getting cyms to bloom is a real challenge. The large cyms are out for us and we can only grow the so-called miniature types that are heat tolerant with temps in the mid to high 30C year round.