Date: Mon, 13 Oct 1997 22:41:51 +0800 From: Sam Salazar <samster@crossmedia.com> To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com Message-Id: <aabcdefg3967$foo@default> Subject: New Member
Hullo everyone,
Long message alert; Read at your own risk!
(If any "9" or "0" appear where they shoudn't be please note that they
were parentheses at one point in their lives.)
My name is Griff and I'm a new convert. I've killed a VFT (does this
mean I'm inducted in the CP society already?) and at least six N.
alatas before the 'net came along and I found enough info to keep them
alive. I live in Manila (Philippines, somewhere near the equator) which
I guess might make some people think I've got it easy growing CP's. Sad
fact of the matter is I'm OK with orchids and really good with ant
plants (Myrmecodia) but I'm really horrible when it comes to Neps. At
the moment I have four N. alatas and two N. truncatas living in my lath
house. I've got a temp. range from 90-105 degrees in the daytime to
90-105 degrees at night (big swing no? wonderful for Vandas bad for
Coelogynes). They receive direct sunlight until 9:30 am and bright
indirect light the rest of the day (same as my Phalaenopsis - what is
the plural of this word? Phalenopsises? Phalenopses? Phalenopsi?:})
Problem is they refuse to pitcher. In the four months or so that I have
had them, the little buggers have refused to play ball. I thought it was
the humidity. But since we have a natural humidity level here of about
40-50% and my lath house has 80-100% the neighborhood plant guru said it
was probably something else. OK so I thought maybe changing the medium
would send the right message. I took four cuttings of my 1.5 metre long
pitcher-less alata and rooted one in plain soil (the same kind the
CITES-challenged, economically marginalized CP street peddler had been
selling all my Neps in), another in pure sphagnum, one in fern chips and
the last in the medium I've been raising them in (1/2 sphag, 1/4 fern
chips and 1/4 course sand.
The one in pure soil died after three months (a sad, tragic affair). I
also noticed that it had a very poor root development (if indeed the
scraggly things hanging from the bottom WERE roots) the other three are
still alive - quite healthy, actually. Except they also won't pitcher.
Worse, I can't seem to see see any differences between at all, at least
no difference attributable to the different media that I could say was
statistically significant. I'm not a scientist (Scientists, like my Mom
are very smart people with bad hair. Was that an un-pc thing to say?
Sorry all, and sorry Nick Plummer!) but I think I botched up somewhere.
Was four months too short a time to experiment? In desperation I turn to
the good folk of the net for help.
With apologies for an over-fondness for parentethical phrases,
Griff in Manila,
P.s. What happens if I leave a Nep growing in pure sphagnum? Recently, I
collected two nearly dead N. truncatas in situ from an illegal logging
site in Palawan (an island to the south of Manila presently obscured by
haze from burning Indonesian Neps). They had been growing in almost pure
sphagnum. BTW, I coudn't report the said illegal logger. He was a
prominent politician. Sad but true.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Tue Jan 02 2001 - 17:31:12 PST