Laelia rubescens

Laelia rubescens flowering in the Fuqua Orchid Center

Laelia rubescens is a lovely orchid native to seasonally dry forests in Mexico and Central America. Our plants grow happily alongside Laelia purpurata and Laelia anceps in our warm greenhouse. Many of the Mexican laelias from dry upland (1600 m+)  oak forests do poorly for us on account of our hot night temperatures in spring and summer. Fortunately Laelia rubescens ranges a bit lower--sea level to 1600 m. It doesn't mind the heat at all.

Autumn Laelias

Laelia perrenii flowering at the Fuqua Orchid Center

It's easy to forget during the mid-summer Laelia purpurata explosion that not all Laelias flower in summer. One of my autumn favorites is Laelia perrenii, flowering now in the Fuqua Orchid Center.

Laelia perrenii is a warm to hot-growing Brazilian species that is much less common in cultivation than the enormously popular L. purpurata. The ragged margin on the upper part of the lip gives the flower a totally distinctive look, like torn fabric. It is an undemanding orchid, easy to grow in a greenhouse that is hot, bright and dryish. For most of the year our two plants are hard to spot among the hundred or so Laelia purpurata in our back up greenhouse, but when they flower in autumn I always wish that we had bunches of them. Definitely time to set a capsule on Laelia perrenii. You can see this wonderful orchid on display right now in the Orchid Display House.

Where do I cut my Cattleya after it blooms?

I'm glad you asked! It's important to know where to cut your Cattleya spike after it flowers. Cattleya anatomy is a little quirky and it is easy to make a mistake. The good news is that there's really just one bit that requires an introduction--the bud sheath. Once you are able to recognize a bud sheath, deadheading a Cattleya or its close relative Laelia is a snap.

So grab your favorite cutting tool and follow along!

1. Locate the bud sheath. Have a look at the photo above. Both flowers are supported by a vertical spike. The upper part of the vertical spike is visible emerging from the top of a green bud sheath.  The sheath is sealed on two sides and open at the top. The lower part of the spike is faintly visible in silhouette through the backlit bud sheath.

The purpose of the bud sheath is to protect the young flower buds as they develop. It remains in place even after the flowers are spent. Bud sheaths are green or papery brown. Cattleyas and laelias are stealth bloomers--in many species the bud sheaths appear months before blooming, with the buds emerging just a week or so before opening. The flowers often take me by surprise.

2. Look carefully! If no flowers or old spikes are visible, carefully examine the bud sheath to make sure that it is an old sheath. You don't want to accidentally remove a sheath full of young buds.  Gently squeeze the sheath to make sure that there are no buds inside. The color of the sheath is not a reliable indicator. Some orchids, like the Laelia pictured above and below, have sheaths that remain green after the flowers are spent. Others produce bud sheaths that turn papery brown while the buds are still developing inside.

Each mature shoot--the pseudobulb, leaf and bud sheath--produces just one flush of flowers during its lifetime.  If you can still see the old spike with its spent flowers you needn't look for a second flush of buds inside the sheath. The show is over. It's time to remove the spike and sheath.

3. Find the spot where the bud sheath meets the stem. The bud sheath and its flower spike originate at the top of the stem (pseudobulb) and they are surrounded by one or two leaves.

4. Position your cut as close as possible to the base of the leaf. 

5. Make the cut through the sheath and spike.

6. Examine your plant for more old sheaths. Any pseudobulb that matured recently could have a sheath. You can use the same cutting tool to remove all the old sheaths on that plant. That's it! Don't forget to safely discard or clean your cutting tool before cutting another plant.

Why is it important to remove old sheaths?

Prompt deadheading of cattleyas and laelias is a high priority in our greenhouses. Old bud sheaths often fill with water and bacteria, becoming bags of icky aqueous goo. You can get away with being lazy about deadheading your Oncidium, but not your Cattleya.

Wondering where to cut your Dendrobium? Find out here.
Click here to find out where to cut your Oncidium spike.
Go here to learn where to cut a Phalaenopsis spike.

& the Laelias Keep Coming

Laelia tenebrosa

Laelia purpurata label missing

Laelia purpurata carnea

Yes, there are orchids in flower this week besides the laelias, but photographing them has become a compulsion. They're handsome plants and so photogenic.

I love the evocative Latin names given to some of the laelia species--tenebrosa comes from the same root as tenebrae, a word I associate with Good Friday and which means 'darkness'. Carnea is 'flesh-red'. We grow our Laelia tenebrosa orchids under the same conditions as our laelia purpuratas--very warm and very bright.

My heart sinks when I notice a label missing from one of our plants. A missing label is a big headache for us for a variety of reasons, and not just because there are hundreds of Laelia purpurata varieties to sift through. Even if we succeed in identifying our plant's name, all of the other data that we have collected on that particular plant (source, acquisition date, etc.) has become forever disassociated. We usually attach our collection labels to the pot in which the orchid is planted, but sometimes labels break, or are removed. *Sigh* If you can identify our Laelia purpurata 'label missing', drop me a line.

Laelia lobata

Laelia lobata flowering in the Fuqua Orchid Center

Another of the lovely Brazilian orchids flowering now in the Fuqua Orchid Center is Laelia lobata.

For most of the year our plants grow side by side with Laelia purpurata in the warm back up greenhouse. Although their cultural requirements are similar, for some reason Laelia lobata's flowering season is less predictable than that of Laelia purpurata. Sometimes we see a flush of flowers in fall.

Laelia lobata is not uncommon in cultivation. Unfortunately its remaining habitat in the wild has become restricted to vertical rocky outcrops around Rio de Janeiro, mainly at 200-800 m. Although it usually grows on rocky substrates, Laelia lobata is occasionally seen as an epiphyte in the canopy of taller trees.

The Brazilian Beauty, Laelia purpurata

Laelia purpurata carnea

June is a terrific month to see some of the showiest orchids in our collection. The Laelia purpurata* varieties, Stanhopea species and Anguloa (Tulip Orchid) species make a wonderful early summer combo. However, it is the Laelia purpurata varieties who are the undisputed stars of early summer. They pretty much own the Orchid Center for from late May until July.

Laelia purpurata 'Adam's' x "alba"

Laelia purpurata is enormously popular with orchid growers in warm countries, especially in Brazil, in the states of Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina and Sao Paulo, where it grows in coastal areas. Laelia purpurata is the state flower of Santa Catarina.

Laelia purpurata werkhauseri

Among Brazil's many annual floral shows the Joinville Flowers Festival in the state of Santa Catarina is the largest featuring Laelia purpurata. The festival, which hosts varied floral exhibits, scientific lectures, orchid judging, music and dancing, is dominated by the presence of Laelia purpurata and its many varieties. In recent years the festival's visitation has reached nearly 200,000.

In Atlanta Laelia purpurata is easy to grow in a warm (65º night minimum) bright greenhouse.They love Atlanta's long warm summers.We grow our plants in clay pots in a standard Cattleya mix of medium grade fir bark, charcoal and sponge rock. They grow quickly and make handsome specimen plants. Stop by and see them!

*some recent synonyms:
Cattleya purpurata Van den Berg (2008)
Sophronitis purpurata Van den Berg & Chase (2000)

Why An Early Spring Means Trouble

Laelia purpurata 'Adam's' x "alba"  flowering this week in the FOC*

We had an exceptionally mild winter this year followed by a very early spring. Atlanta's dogwoods flowered a month before the Dogwood Festival.

Greenhouse plants are not exempt from the effects of an early spring. I was only slightly surprised and a little dismayed this week to see the first flush of flowers on our bench of Laelia purpurata orchids. They typically flower for us in late May and June.

Why dismayed? In a normal year Atlanta's plants have to endure almost four months of daily daytime temperatures above 90º. Ninety degrees outside translates into 85º in the greenhouse when the humidity is high.  Laelia purpurata certainly doesn't mind the heat, but our soft-leaved intermediate growing orchids begin to show signs of heat stress after four months. Since the daytime temperatures are already above 90º, they have a long slog ahead. A few years of this and some of these orchids will simply disappear from our collection.

Just as worrying is the effect of the mild winter and prolonged summer on pest populations. Aphids and some thrip species originate outdoors, so a population boom outdoors spells trouble indoors or in a greenhouse where there are no natural predators.

Resident populations of scale and mealybugs can also explode. As temperatures rise the generation time (the length of time an insect needs to become reproductive) shortens. A long hot summer means many more generations of pests at work on a population of plants already weakened by heat stress.

Stanhopea tigrina flowering on May 1

Moreover, hot conditions limit our use of our favorite low toxicity pesticide, Neem oil, which can harm a plant that is heat and drought stressed. I would hate to have to resort to conventional pesticides because of the heat. This year we started our spray cycle with Neem oil a month early.

One weapon that I have at my disposal is the ability to manipulate the greenhouse environment. By programming the exhaust fans and evaporative cooler to run not just during the day, but also during the coolest part of the night (3 am to 6 am) I can drive down the night temperature to a reasonable level.

Even so, we're in for a long battle.

*Synonyms:
Sophronitis purpurata Van den Berg & Chase (2000)
Cattleya purpurata Van den Berg (2008)