can i grow Dendrobium Kingiatum outside in zone 9?

So, i have this dendrobium k. and i got it to flower this year but with only one spike. it lived in an unheated shed in an east facing window with alot of neglect some orchid fertilizer every month until the flower spikes formed and then i brought it inside. The heat seemed to not be that good for the flowers. Can i grow this orchid ouside in dry shade in a raised bed of bark or sand or something. I've seen some denros k. in a very large pot at the local college outside next to a building underneath a shade structure. Do you think this would be better? would i get more flowers? I love this little plants. it is so dainty and beautiful if I could incorporate it into some part of my woodland garden i would be so thrilled. What do you folks think. Also, this is the only orchid I have, and I'm very inexperienced with orchids. There are lots more Psuedobulbs? forming and i think they need space to root. Its looking like a double decker orchid and its in a 3-4 inch plastic pot with bark. Could these new parts lean on a tree trunk, root and climb up? Just a wild idea. Also we are in a costal climate with a strong marine influence lots of fog in the summer but no rain. If this isn't possible could anyone recommend a hardy orchid for me? I've got cymbidium. There not my favorite. I like pink, white, purple. I looked at some hardy orchid websites. What about the "crane" shaped one?

According to Andy's Orchids website D. kingianum tolerates temps from 40 to 95 degrees (tolerent favoring cool).
Carol

I looked at a map of California for USDA Zones and it looks like you are in Zone 9b. That makes a slight difference in expected winter temperatures. (I had never realized California had such a mixture of so many Zones!). http://books.google.com/books?id=ow7NMmhz5wwC&pg=PA17&lpg=PA17&dq=Santa+Cruz+CAlifornia+USDA+climate+Zone&source=bl&ots=GJDXvQEM8p&sig=3JtjMWsNkMqnkpQdGGTA1REU5iw&hl=en&ei=hsXLStDYB5mutgeu0YzaAQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9#v=onepage&q=&f=false

The "crane orchid" you are referring to is probably Pecteilis radiata (formerly known as Habenaria radiata and that is how it will probably be listed in most nursery catalogs). The Plant Files page gives the range from Zone 7a - 9b. You may find that your climate is too warm and dry for this orchid, but it may be worth a try. http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/48722/

Here are some comments by Lophophora in Plant Files for the P. radiata:

There are surprisingly no Zip Code reports for the P. radiata, which may indicate it can be as difficult to grow as Lophophora suggests.

Your best bet may be to contact your local Santa Cruz Orchid Society. The orchid enthusiasts there would be most familiar with your climate and could help you select some orchids that may thrive nicely outdoors. Attend a meeting, ask questions and see if the orchid addiction bug bites you! LOL

SANTA CRUZ ORCHID SOCIETY
Live Oak Grange Hall
1900 17th Avenue, Santa Cruz
1st Friday of each month, 7:30 pm
Vicky Smith
Email: orchids@cruzio.com
Newsletter Editor: Colin Smith
Email: Colinsmithh@yahoo.com

Jeremy

Woah thanks Jeremy. It sounds like that is the right on about the button. I really appreciate the info. I'm always trying to do something in my garden thats a little off the beaten path. So.... got have a challenge. I we get down to the low twenties maybe once or twice a year but I've heard that they can take similar conditions to cymbidiums which do grow here. So thats why i thought it might be possible with some special positioning and maybe care during frosts but we are in the 30s during the winter nights for periods of a week sometimes well anyway. I get zone envy both ways because of our not too hot not too cold climate.lol Thanks again i appreciate your input.

You are welcome. Glad to help out. I think the general rule for most tropical orchids is to bring them indoors whenever the temperatures reach about 40 F. I truly envy that you are able to grow Cymbidiums in the ground. They are one of my favorite orchids but the climate here is generally too hot for them. I have one mini-Cymbidium, Peter Pan 'greensleeves' that is more heat tolerant and blooms dependably each year. I bought a few other Cymbidiums as bargain rack orchids this year and hope they will do O.K.

But from what I've read, the only area of the world without native orchids is Antarctica, so there must be something just right for just about every garden!

Jeremy

My father has lots of Dendrobium kingianum which flower prolifically. Because he's elderly I divided and repotted them for him. His climate (Melbourne Australia) can get fairly cold in winter (a couple of degrees below freezing) and hot and dry in summer. I brought a few plants to my home but it's hot year round here. They've not done well and never looked like flowering. I really need to send them back before they die.

I'm really diggin' these responses. I didn't know about mini cymbidiums. that sounds super cute. I've got to check that one out.
tropic- Now it sounds like I could keep these little guys out in the yard, maybe. I'm in a micro climate of a micro climate that's a little warmer.

I was looking into native orchids but I couldn't find and sources just pictures of them in the wild. They are pretty cool. But my guess is that they are hard to come by and being such a beginner I wouldn't want to kill one. I'll contact the orchid society.

i think I'll try to take some of the new pseudo bulbs and pot them up seperately that way I won't kill the whole thing if outside doesn't work out.

Tropicbreeze - I was also unsuccessful in growing D. kingianum here in our heat and humidity. I think its final death knell came from a heavy infestation of spider mites. I've been told by a mini-orchid expert in my area that D. kingianum is difficult to bring into flower, so I probably won't try growing it again.

Jeremy

Last year I bought a dendrobium speciosum from Andy's. When I called to order, Andy answered the phone. He told me that it liked the cooler temps and actually needed them in order to flower. Mine has not flowered, by my own mistake. I didn't realize it was beginning to spike, and moved it inside too soon, missed a few waterings, and the little buds blasted. I should've listened to him!! Anyway, since the speciosum is a relative of the kingianum, both aussie hybrids, I am treating my kingianum like the speciosum, and going to try to give it more cooler temps this year. Hopefully, I will get blooms. Andy said it will take lower than 40, I was just scared to try it. I paid almost $40 for a small 4 inch pot!!!
I also planted it in a "down under pot" , so it is growning upside down. just starting to make the upward turn!!
Janet

Janet - thanks for the info! I have never heard of a "down under pot" for orchids. Are there instructions/illustrations somewhere? Is there an advantage in providing better drainage or some other enhancement from growing upside down?

Jeremy

What do you all think about trying to fix an orchid to a rock and with some assortment of pebbles and bark trying to mimic its natural habitat?

A large lava rock or pumice stone would probably do fine. Check your local pet stores that sell aquariums and aquarium fish -- they generally have a bin of lava/pumice rocks for fairly low prices. These stones also typically already have a depression scooped out in them or have a hole drilled through them which would make the attachment of the orchid easier.

I've experimented with attaching some Phalaenopsis orchids to age-hardened oak branches and that has worked out O.K. I put some sphagnum on the branch under the orchid roots and then gently tied the orchid to the branch using monofilament fish line. The orchid will attach itself after a year or so. Driftwood might also make a good orchid mount?

Jeremy

I have Dendrobiums on oak bark slabs (both red and white oak) as well as dogwood. I added a bit of sphagnum when mounting too. They seem to love it. Mine were mounted in Spring and immediately started rooting on.

Oh my gosh very exciting! My favorite nursery guy gave me the thumbs up on taking the dendro outside so, here goes nothin'. he also said that when they are making a lot of keikies that they might not be doing well. Nothing new recently so i hope that's a good sign. He suggested making sure the drainage is good new bark and taking off the keikeis. I think if I change out the bark i might just rig up something fancy with the lava rock suggested. If the bark isn't degraded and the roots look good and no new keikies are forming i think i should wait till it starts actively growing to do all this. Thanks for the inspiration. Dendro K is now chillin' on the shed window sill, with window open, getting ready for some cool nights.

Dendrobium is such a vast genus the conditions they grow under varies considerably. D. kingianum grows in the forests and often sits (naturally) in a heavier organic soil mix. There's a lot of different D. speciosum but most of them are lithophytes, although they will grow on trees. A mix for kingianum would probably kill them. Most speciosum grow on sandstone in places where they catch a lot of leaf drop. Their environment would be quite acidic but super well drained.

Another dendrobium I found a lot of when trekking recently grew in some amazing places. Dendrobium discolor, likes to grow in sand on beaches barely above high tide level and will often run up into nearby trees. I've seen them growing in coral rubble washed up at the back of beaches and on exposed cliff faces and boulders along the shoreline. They're exposed to salt spray and blazing sun and seem to love it.

Tropic - Very cool. It's all starting to come together. No rock. just organic medium like the nursery guy said. It so cool to be talking to someone with first hand knowledge of a plants habitat from across the globe! I love DG. It is so interesting.

Jeremy,
Here is the link to the pic online that I was trying to emulate.
http://www.abcgardenworld.com/catalog377714.html
I didn't get exactly the huge orchid I was hoping for, but maybe over time it will grow up and start surrounding the pot. I have the blue glazed pot, which I thought would look great with the dendrobium. I wanted a yellow variety, but could only find a white/ cream colored one at Andy's.
Janet

Very interesting, Janet! I had to pull out the high-powered magnifying lens to read the fine print instructions, but it sounds very cool! The prices seem reasonable, so I may need to give it a try someday.

Jeremy

Tropic, that's a helpful post and great photo for all of us to see native conditions. Thanks. I remember native Florida Dendrobiums clambering through our limestone and coral rock gardens and up all sorts of opportune trees. Then again, I brought several from home this past Spring that were growing way up in the trees. I mounted those. I'll have to bloom them to see what I've got.
Laurel

Glad you all like it. I didn't really read all the fine print. I saw the pic in a magazine once, then searched online, took a while to fine it, but finally I did. Then, I spoke with a few members of our society and had them look at the pic of it. Several of them agreed that it was some variety of dendrobium speciosum. I now agree knowing what the canes of the dend. look like. A lot of garden centers, and gift shops carry the pots, so you can save the shipping. Mine was the same price as the website, but no shipping.

One more question. Should I repot this? is this root bound for an orchid?

another pic showing the keikeis

It does look like the roots are fairly constrained in the medium. If the roots are able to hold the bark planting medium in a tight ball like that, the orchid would probably benefit from repotting with fresh bark medium. You may need to take something like a nut picker or bamboo chop stick to gingerly loosen the roots from the bark and let the bark fall away until you are left with mostly bare roots. Then repot it in the next size pot up with fresh bark medium.

I don't see a true keiki on your Dendrobium. The keikis form somewhere along the upper part of the canes, usually at least half way up or more toward the top. They will grow roots and leaves as an individual new plant and will remain attached to the cane until they are cut off or the cane dies and the keiki falls over on a tree branch (in nature) or onto bark medium if grown in a pot.. It looks like you have a Dendrobium with the normal growth habit of new canes growing from the older canes, often in a fairly straight line. You might potentially divide the orchid if you have new canes growing in more than one area by slicing straight down thorough the roots at a point immediately adjacent to the new growth cane so that you separate a new growth cane from the plant. This is somewhat risky though, so if you are satisfied with one relatively happy orchid, it is probably best not to try to divide it.

Jeremy

OK great, I think i'll just move it into a bigger pot. Do you have an opinion on the orchid pots with the cutouts along the walls? Would this be appropriate for this orchid?

The clay orchid pots with slits in the sides are great for providing the additional fast drainage that most orchids need so that the roots don't stay waterlogged (a condition that will kill an orchid faster than just about anything else). Your Dendrobium should be very happy in one of those pots.

I'm such a cheapskate that I won't even pay the few pennies extra to buy the preformed clay orchid pots. I have a ceramic drill bit that I use to add extra holes to a regular clay pot. But I will add that technique came about because I was once getting all of a local Lowe's distressed plants for pennies on the dollar (about $600 - $800 or more retail plants per week for about $60 - $80) and a lot of those plants came with clay pots as outer liners. I ended up with far more clay pots than I would ever use because I don't want to grow anything in pots except orchids. All of my tropical houseplants went into the ground several years ago because I got tired of lugging them around for the few months when they needed winter protection. They have all been able to survive the winters by placing them in a few warm, protected microclimates in my yard.

Jeremy

Awesome i think i've got the confidence now. I don't know why i'm so nervous about this one. I'm really quite confident about my garden and house plants. I've hardly seen a healthy orchid in any ones house. They are probably more sturdy than I'm thinking. Thanks a bunch.