In March 2016 I was contacted by an expert Pleione grower who had made cross-pollinations of his plants and produced seed samples. Could I germinate them for him, as he did not have the means to do so? I said I would give it a go via the asymbiotic method of orchid seed germination, where no fungus is used and strict sterility of nutrient medium is paramount.
Pleiones are a genus of about 20 species of mainly ground-growing hardy orchids from South-East Asia, eg the Himalayas, through to Thailand, Vietnam, and China. They occur in rather cool, damp, mountain forests and are low growing with large single flowers that are often showy and colourful. Many hybrid cultivars have been made. I had never grown any Pleiones before, however.
A few jars of seed germinated and formed tiny green pseudobulbs with leaves. After 3 years in the jar growing, going dormant, then re-shooting annually, they seemed just big enough to de-flask. They were potted up in the very top of a compost containing bark and sphagnum moss.
Thereafter they grew very slowly, forming a slightly bigger pseudobulb and a correspondingly bigger leaf each year. Last year I had the pot outdoors after the frosts, exposed to rain but in a fairly shady spot. Also I fed more regularly with a diluted liquid feed designed for tropical orchids – approximately every 2 weeks. This produced leaves about a foot long and finally did the trick.
In late March flowers opened for the first time, four of them. It has taken almost exactly 8 years to the day! Quite a saga, but I haven’t been holding my breath all that time and have also been able to do other things.
It does take time for the bulbs to fatten before flowering I’m told. But I feel I could probably have shaved at least 2 years off the timeline if I had been bolder earlier with the liquid feeding. My reluctance comes from growing British hardy orchids – mostly these will curl up and die quickly if fed liberally. Also they often have trouble coping with the de-flasked environment, but the Pleiones didn’t seem to have any problem with that.
The flowers produced are a cross between Askia red petal and Grandiflora yellow throat.
Photos: 1.Pleione seedlings post-germination, 2. De-flasked pseudobulbs, 3. Pleione pot in flower, 4. Pleione flower
Comments