Cymbidium love/hate

I love cymbidiums, I truly do. The foliage is fantastic, reminding me of little palm trees – or not so little in some cases where the plant is the size of a small palm tree. The big fat vigorous bulbs and their power to grow fast and survive so many types of environments and lastly the flowers. Cymbidium flowers are among the most bellowed of all orchids to me and I never can get enough of them.

But, there is a problem here. I am really bad at growing them. Actually absurdly bad. Actually probably as bad as with growing cattleyas. The common Chinese cymbidiums that are sold in our UK garden centers are unfortunately cold growing plants that require you to either have a greenhouse or a cold porch or keep them outside and then bring in.

So I can’t really do that. In fact I can’t do that at all. I have a patio. If I leave orchids outside they will become the lair of slugs, spiders, ants, catepillars and anything that crawls outside. And that’s the big NOPE for me.

In fact last year I got lucky and bought two cymbidums from Homebase in Stamford UK. Each cost me 2 pounds, which is a bargain. And they both went into big pots and semi hydroponics and outside. Because why not. Experimenting. Then I bin the very large clump one, and kept the other small one. It had very thin, blade like foliage. Bulbs were much, much smaller. I though this one is really nice, I shall keep it. Kept I had it. In the garden, for a year.

Now, about 2 weeks ago I felt really annoyed with myself that I did this, and that I can’t really grow the plants I love.

So I did extensive research just at the beginning of the quarantine and I got a surprise, surprise a grammatophyllum and cymbidium hybrid. These hybrids are the best of both worlds, they are heat tolerant meaning they don’t need the cold spell that cymbidums need, and grow vigorously like gramatophyllum but they have cymbidium flowers. The plant should arrive some time today!





Now going back to my other cymbidium, I took it back into the house, cleaned with every insecticide I could find and had to divide it into three. Two were potted into sphagnum moss in self watering pots. The third division was in bad condition and it went into the bin.

Its almost week 3 now with this sphagnum moss experiment and I have two new growths showing and I am really hoping this may work!