NEWS
Andy Gissing brought in cakes in celebration of Angela’s 85th birthday.
David Mittel won the Novices table with his Miltonia Queen Anne. Bill Gardiner won the Winners table with his Bulbophyllum Elizabeth Ann Buckleberry. Runner-up was Paul Eaton with his Dendrobium tetragonum.
GUEST SPEAKER
Our guest speaker this month was Andrew Bannister of Orchid Alchemy (link), who gave a talk on Sub-tropical Epiphytes.
Andrew discussed five regions within the sub-tropics lying approximately between 23.5 degrees and 35/40 degrees either side of the equator, noting their annual temperatures and rainfall and orchids that were found growing there. All the areas had winters where the temperature fell to as low as -5 Celsius, but these periods were also typically dry, with the bulk of the rainfall occurring in the Summer and averaging 1.5 metres which, for comparison, is the annual rainfall for Wales. He keeps his own greenhouse to a minimum of 6 Celsius with a rise in temperature during the day, assisted by extra heat if necessary.
The 5 subtropical regions were:
- Paraguay/Northern Argentina/Southern Brazil,
- Sikkim to Japan
- N/W Mexico to Florida
- Eastern S Africa
- Eastern Australia
Good examples of subtropical species:
- Laelia anceps (many colour forms)
- Cattleya intermedia (many colour forms)
- Cattleya purpurata (many colour forms)
- Coelogyne cristata, C. flaccida, C. nitida and C. mooreana
- Cymbidium goeringii and many others
- Dendrobium kingianum and hybrids
- Dendrobium moniliforme (many cultivars)
- Sarcochilus sp
- Vanda (Neofinetia) falcata (many cultivars)
He currently grows Coelogynes and Australian Dendrobiums under frost free conditions and is experimenting with the others. The rest he grows with a minimum of 6-8C but is still experimenting. The main idea is that the night time minimum is less important than the daytime temperature, which should rise to around 12-14C for a few hours in the middle of the day. Even with the daily lift in temperature, far less energy is used overall.
