| September Culture Notes..... For the Wairarapa region (New Zealand) |
| In General..... |
| CULTURE CORNER |
| Make certain that you have plenty of slug & snail baits out as these pests are cruising about at night just looking for nice sweet & juicy flower spikes. Nothing worse than waiting all year for your flowers, only to have them munched & ruined. Wrapping a bit of cotton wool around the stem just below the buds is another method of keeping these guys from the flowers, any that get past the baits will then be halted at this point. Aphids will start to appear in force as the weather beings to warm up a little, so keep an eye out for them 7 spray accordingly, or a sprinkle of Rose dust will also help control them. CYMBIDIUMS keep up the repotting that is needed as plants finish their flowering. Clean up the roots & get rid of any spent backbulbs, & all old dead leaf husks while the plant is out of the pot. Repot into a pot just big enough to take the roots & have enough room on the surface for about two years growth. After repotting, water sparingly for a few weeks so that broken roots can seal up & new roots are also encouraged to grow from the bulbs & this makes for a nice healthy plant. It is a good idea to soak your bark for a few of days before using it, as dry bark will not readily take up moisture, & when you do water, it will just run straight through and not be readily available to the plant. Feed regularity can be increased a bit as the weather gets warm, & the growths will start to move. PAPHIOPEDILUMS these can also be repotted now as they finish flowering. Add a bit of palm peat or shredded sphagnum moss to the bark mix to give it some fines. This improves the moisture holding qualities, so that the roots do not dry out quickly & because these plants only need to be fed lightly, this allow the plant to get the best out of the medium without the need for frequent watering in the colder weather. Trim out any dried or dead roots etc while you have the plant out of the pot. CATTLEYAS. Are best repotted after the plant has finished flowering, & the new growth just starts to move out from the base of the plant, any that are starting to crawl over the outer edge of the pots should be repotted. After they have been repotted, don’t feed them for a couple of weeks, then you can apply a nitrogen type feed to promote the new growth more vigorously. Once the new leaf begins to open, halt feeding with nitrogen & revert to a potash type feed to ensure a lovely crop of flowers. DENDROBIUMS should be showing their flower spikes by now, don’t spray with any oil based sprays as this is bound to cause damage to the flower buds. If you do need to deal with any pests, it’s best to use a systemic spray. Watch that a late frost doesn’t catch the forming flowers as well. |