Pleione 2017

[Maren]

Hi and Happy New Year !!!

It's so lovely to start the year with a little bowl of cheerful pleiones, P. Tsingtau (praecox x humilis). The closeup shows very clearly the humilis parentage in the lip markings. This was a bowl that sat forgotten behind a lot of other things, grown slightly warmer with my P. praecox and Barcena. It has not been repotted for a year or so, but benefitted from the feeding regime. Just see the size of the bulbs and there are about 5 flowers per bulb.

[Cfred72]

Congratulations Maren. Your small bowls of Pleiones are simply beautiful. A little ahead of time?

[ashley]

Happy New Year to you too Maren.  What a great start

[Maggi Young]

Five flowers to a bulb is  a great new year's gift, Maren!

[Jules]

What a wonderful Pleione Maren! Congratulations!

[Matt T]

The winter weather has not delayed important deliveries. Just one example of the super quality pseudobulbs that arrived today from Maren. Thank you!

[Jules]

Hi all,

I received today plenty of Pleiones from Maren and the past week from R. Kretz. I'll be soon able to show you my blooms of Pleiones. There is Pleione Eiger which have big developped bulbs, it will be very early this year!

[Jules]

Hello,

I just potted Pleione Eiger "Leslie Frank" which will be very early this year, I think that the bloom will open in two weeks so at the very beginning of Februrary!

Jules

[karel_t]

Knock, knock. Who's there? It's me - the Spring 
K.

[sjusovare]

I was expecting it and... it's a failure
I recently received a P. Sirena (1st time I try that hybrid) and I noticed the bud was already well into growth, so I potted it and put it in the mini greenhouse (for humidity) in my kitchen.


Well, the bud grew as expected, started to open and then... just stopped there, and already looks as if it was worn out (only 3 days in this state, the picture angle makes it looks a lot more open than it really is).

The petals seems almost translucent with pink veins, and thinnish without any real texture (almost like cigarette paper infused with oil), and the lip is starting gowing brown and kinda wet/waxy. Were the plant outside, I would have assumed that the bud froze except that there is no way it froze in my kitchen...


And the 2nd buds is showng signs of drying

Did anyone encounter something similar, and what might be the cause?

19°C day / 15°C night
66% humidity
(which always satisfied my other pleiones in the past)

[SteveC2]

I think the damage might have been done before you received the bulb.  I do wonder why some people leave it so late to send out early flowering bulbs such as Eiger and humilis, but I do not think it has been frozen.  The only time that I have experienced frozen buds was when my heating could not cope with -17 and the greenhouse got down to -7.  The only damage was to some forrestii where the well developed flowers turned brown.   I do think your conditions seem unnecessarily hot and humid for Pleiones.  They are so much tougher than people give them credit for and I think that they do better when grown "hard".

[karel_t]

Hi Julien,
I have to agree with Steve, your temperature is too hot for humilis and hybrids with P. humilis as parent. I assume the buds developed in more colder condition during dormancy, so the plat has now temperature shock.
You should keep them in temperature around 8 or 10 °C.
I think next year will be everything OK.
K.

[sjusovare]

I do agree they don't need that warm and humid, it's rather a space issue considering I do not have a greenhouse anymore, it's either outside (-10 right now) or indoors (never colder than 18 during the day), and then indoors it is much too dry (30%) relatively to the temperature (hence the mini greenhouse, but there the humidity is never below 60%).

Other pleiones usually did well in that setup though (in the past I was transferring them outside to the cold greenhouse only after flowering)

[GordonT]

Julien, do you have a windowsill where it could go? The temperature of the air trapped between the glass and a curtain on the inside is often lower than the overall room temperature. A friend of mine managed to coax better blooms from their plants this way.

[sjusovare]

Unfortunately (or rather fortunately for my energy bill...) it's an energy efficient place, triple glass window with PVC frame so the temperature behind the window is not lower than the rest of the room (even higher in daylight with the slight greenhouse effect between the window and the curtain)