I have two very nice Masdevallia tovarensis orchids. Both of which are in bud right now. One bud opened early in December and it was beautiful!! But the rest are just sitting there, waiting. Waiting for what!?! Every day go in there looking, hoping, waiting. But nothing.
I finally figured out that I think they want more humidity in order to deliver the big price. We have had an unusually cold winter here, so I have actually had to turn on the heater in the orchid room (very low) for the first time ever. So needless to say the relative humidity has plummeted. So, to cater to my darling M. tovarensis I devised a plan. I cranked up the humidifier and ran it solid all night and every other hour during the day for a whole week – with the door closed.
That sure did the trick! The RH in the room hovered around 70-80% and I could practically see the buds swelling. They were loving it! …but the wallpaper did not. It finally gave up and began to bubble in places, despite the four coats of paint on top of them. My dear patient husband finally put his foot down. Can’t say I blame him really – but what about my fuzzy Masdevallias?
That just made me double my efforts looking for a suitable terrarium to convert to a cool vivarium for these guys… and today I think I might have found it. More to come…
How exciting! 🙂 I have a couple of fairly small terrariums (10 gallon and 29 gallon), but they’re the same temperature as the rooms they’re in. It is much easier to keep the humidity higher, though.
I look forward to hearing about your new construction project!
Thanks! 🙂 It is such an incredibly exciting project!! I promise to document it extensively. My warm viv is 75x80x40 cm… it will be dwarfed by this new one. He he…
Hi Karma,
will be interested in see what vivarium you go for,in the process of looking at them too,the exo terra ones look good and many people use them,but the large one are expensive,could buy a lot of plants for that money!!
Regards,
Ade
Oh Karma! I am super excited about this news! I think it will be so cool, and have longed to have a personal mini rain forest, or cloud forest! I cannot wait for an update! I know you will do an excellent job on this!! Can you tell i am excited for you? I don’t think i used enough exclamation points, ha! 😉
Thanks Joan. Yes I can tell you are really excited too. 🙂 I am going to pick it up this coming weekend (right now we’re in the Swedish mountens skiing). Then it will be a lot of (fun) work outfitting it too. I want to create peruvian cloud forest conditions in it!! I am lookng for a good light fixture for it now…
Hi Ade, I missed your comment in moderation, sorry about that. I agree with you, some of the ready made terrariums are quite expensive. I even priced having a custom one made since I wanted one so large – much larger than ExoTerra makes. I probably would have ordered one too had I not found one used. Check on reptile forums for used terrariums, there usually are TONS of people trycing to get rid of them there. Not as easy to find one as large as the one I wanted, but I finally found one almost the same size I had planned to custom build at a fraction of the price. Picking it up tomorrow – I am sooo excited!! I will post pics… 🙂
I also grow M tovarensis, and the plant has stalks that looks green, alive, healthy. Some times they shows several flowers, but at this moment I have no idea about what is their bloom time, it is almost a botanical whim =) After some time, I do not care about the plant, if bloom, fine, if it doesnt, it is ok what the heck.
I am about to cut the plant in 4 or 5 pieces, may be it would be better to have 4 or 5 medium sized plants instead of a big one.
Same goes for other related species such as M rechingeriana, M deceptrix or even M weberbaueri, crazy bloom time. I will cut them all to see what happens.
I will wait for the new terrarium pics ! , if it is that big it seems you will be able to grow pinguins inside !!
Daniel, my M. tovarensis always bloom in the winter time. Usually around the new year. But we have a bit more pronounced seasons here in Sweden compared to Costa Rica. 🙂 But this year they started blooming in December like usual, but then kind of stalled… the buds were sitting for two months doing nothing. Really frustrating. Both of mine are pretty big plants also, it would be interesting to hear if you get better results if you divide yours.
I just picked up the terrarium for the cool viv. yesterday – and you are right – I could easily house penguins in there ha ha… I have to go and photograph it now so I can post some pics. 🙂