Cymbidium

 
Цимбидиум

Orchid family. Homeland India, South and Southeast Asia, Japan, islands of the Malay Archipelago.

In nature, more than 60 species are known that grow in rainy rainforests.

There are three subgenera of cymbidium: Cinerorchis Cyperorchis - with large-flowered erect inflorescences, Cymbidium cymbidium - with small-flowered drooping inflorescences and Jensoa Jensoa - with small-flowered erect inflorescences.

On sale you will find hybrid cymbidiums, their flowering occurs at different times, at different times of the year, lasts up to 3 months or more, subject to growing conditions. Miniature hybrids of cymbidiums are especially popular all over the world. They are native mainly to Japan and China.

Cymbidiums have green, long, linear leaves. Characteristic is the gradual death of old leaves and replacement with young ones. Under favorable conditions, the leaves on the cymbidiums last up to 3 years, then dry out and die off. After them, pseudobulbs remain, which are still capable of giving new growth. As they age, they shrivel, lose their green color and dry out. The flowers of all cymbidiums are fragrant, the smell is quite strong and pleasant. Adult specimens grow quite large, so they require a garter, especially long peduncles, leaning under the weight of numerous flowers.

Characteristics of some types of cymbidium

  • Cymbidium lanceolate Cymbidium lancifolium is a subgenus of Jensoa Jensoa. Flowers with a diameter of up to 5 cm. Petals and sepals are light green, with a central purple vein. The lip is white, with a greenish tinge, with red dots and spots on the middle lobe and with red-chestnut stripes on the lateral lobes. Flowering April - October.
  • Day's cymbidium cymbidium dayanum is a subgenus of Cymbidium cymbidium. The inflorescence is multi-flowered. The diameter of the flowers is up to 5 cm. The petals and sepals are pale cream with a purple central vein. The lip is white, with a strongly twisted anterior lobe. Callus lips white or cream. Flowering August - December.
  • Cymbidium Tracy Cymbidium tracyanwn is a subgenus of Cinerorchis Cyperorchis. The inflorescence is multi-flowered. The diameter of the flowers is up to 15 cm. The flowers are yellowish-green with reddish spots along the veins. The lip is creamy, with a wavy edge and red spots and stripes along the anterior lobe. Flowering September - January.
  • Cymbidium remarkable Cymbidium insigne is a subgenus of Cinerorchis Cyperorchis. The inflorescence is multi-flowered. The diameter of the flowers is up to 7-8 cm. The petals and sepals are white or pale pink, with red spots at the base and near the central vein. The lateral lobes of the lip are purple-blotched, the anterior lobe is pointed and wavy-edged, strongly bent backward and covered with purple spots. Flowering February - May.
  • Low's cymbidium cymbidium lowianmn is a subgenus of Cinerorchis Cyperorchis. The inflorescence is multi-flowered. The diameter of the flowers is up to 10 cm. The petals and sepals are yellowish-green, the three-lobed lip is white or pale yellow with a V-shaped spot on the anterior lobe. Flowering February - July.

Caring for Cymbidium

Цимбидиум

Temperature

Cymbidiums are quite difficult to grow primarily because they need cold wintering. In nature, many species grow at moderate temperatures, up to 24-25 ° C, with a decrease in temperature at night, to about 12-14 ° C. This is a prerequisite for successful flowering and growth. Reducing the temperature at night is easy to ensure if you keep orchids on the balcony or in the garden. Then, of course, they need to be brought indoors, but in a cool place, more precisely, as cool as possible, where about 10 ° C. It is possible to increase the temperature, i.e. it is possible to rearrange cymbidiums to a warmer place only when buds begin to bloom. If transferred to heat prematurely, buds can die.

Lighting

Cymbidiums are very photophilous, but scattered light should be in intensity, which happens around 11 am on the southeast window. Midday and afternoon sun produce heat that cymbidiums do not tolerate well from home without a good supply of fresh air. In winter, lighting should be maximum - the south window, as daylight hours are short, and illuminate with daylight lamps!

Watering

Abundant during growth in spring and summer, the soil should be slightly moist. With excess humidity, rooting may occur, black spots appear on the leaves at the base. With severe overdrinking, especially when warm, pseudobulbs shrivel, buds and flowers fall prematurely. To reduce watering to prepare for flowering, they begin with a reduction in daylight hours, and the nights are colder, by about September. The cooler the temperature, the longer the substrate dries, and the more careful you need to water. It is better to wait for the complete drying of the soil in the pot. It is necessary to water the temperature slightly higher than the air temperature.

Fertilizer

During the growth period from March to August, they are fed with special fertilizer for orchids. The American Orchid Society argues that the best fertilizer for cymbidiums is balanced in terms of nitrogen-phosphorus-potassium NPK in equal parts - for example, when NPK 12-12-12, well, or NPK 8-8-8, the numbers as such do not matter - it is important that the proportions are the same. At the same time, the dose of fertilizer is taken two times less than the recommended, and fertilizing dressing on a moistened substrate weekly. You can carry out extra-root feeding on the sheet.

Air humidity

About 50-60% is enough, but in room conditions the humidity is much lower. Therefore, either a tank with water is placed nearby (fountain, tray with pebbles), or high humidity is achieved by spraying - in the morning and in the evening. If the humidity is insufficient, the ends of the leaves will dry, and the flowers will fall prematurely. At the same time, if the orchid is in a cool room, you do not need to spray it!

Flight connections

Cymbidiums do not like frequent transplantation when their roots are disturbing, so transplantation is necessary only when the elements of the substrate began to turn into dust, if the bark crumbles, it spills out through drainage holes. Soil for cymbidiums: 3 parts of pine bark, 1 part of leaf earth, 1 part of pieces of foam (or wine cork). Do not add any manure, very popular recipes with horse manure or cow humus are unfounded. Cymbidium grows quite well on an inert substrate, you can not even add any leaf or peat land. So you reduce the likelihood of decay, a fertile environment for the development of microflora, including pathogenic. But feeding with complex mineral fertilizers will definitely be necessary. The roots of cymbidium, like other orchids, should breathe, and not slowly decompose in peat substrate.

Reproduction

Division during transplantation. When separating, each part should have at least 3 developed pseudobulbs. Watering after transplantation and careful. Places of scrapping and cutting should be sprinkled with charcoal.

Interesting advice of the forum woman a34: If you have separate bulbs and everything without roots (the roots have rotted), then I would advise you to shorten all the leaves to 15-20 cm, tie them in a bunch and hang them in 5 liter bottles with bulbs up, pour water on the bottom of the bottle. For at least a month it should sag like this until the kidney wakes up on each bulb and starts to grow, then sphagnum can come in handy, and you can plant it with the bulb down.

Cymbidium - discuss?!

Practical experience

Anyanya: For flowering, cymbidium requires a decrease in temperature at night to 10-13 ° C from August to October, for laying flower buds, so it is better to send it to the country or put it outside at this time. And so it seems to grow normally at room temperature, but loves to eat fertilizers.

But if the growth climbs, then it is useless to freeze, you need to warm. A decrease in night temperatures is necessary from autumn, in the future in November you can make a period of rest and wait for peduncles. I had to lower to + 7 at night and during the day to + 11 to bloom.

Peduncles in cymbidium are formed only on new bulbs, and new growth on both old and new.

a34: If the plant is displayed in the garden in the summer, or just bought, there is a possibility that living creatures are hidden in the roots. For prevention, I usually add Aktara 0.8 g/liter, with immersion of the pot in the solution. Soaking in chemicals will last for 10 minutes - wait until the waters are drunk and emerge themselves, put it on for 1 hour without consequences for plants.

It is advisable to check for the presence of snails and slugs - put bait on top and bottom of the pot, for example, apple trimmings or cabbage. Very little ethylene will be released from the apple crust, so the orchid will not hurt. It is advisable to check the bait at night, with dawn snails and slugs usually hide in the ground.

About lighting: Cymbidiums are one of the most sun-resistant orchids, normal illumination for them is 50% of the maximum direct sun (not less than 5000 lux and up to 30,000 lux). But this is for plants accustomed to the sun, when exposed to the sun from the room, brownish - brown burns may appear on their leaves so that they do not need to be accustomed to the plant gradually.

My plants are in the garden, direct sun before lunch, then partial shade. The temperature of + 40 and even higher in the South is well maintained, watering in the heat twice a week, and blowing with the wind, not closed loggia. The pot is preferably not black or wrapped in white paper.

How to choose cymbidium when buying

Freya: It's better to choose in the conservatory, but to be honest, tsimb is not for the room at all! Because of the direct sun that he needs, a place for him on the windowsill, but there he can hardly fit - a large and fast-growing plant!

On mine when buying there were 3 pseudobulbs, even during flowering, he began to grow two new growth, one of which is now (that is, in three months) the length of the leaves reached the size of the old Rostov, plus the third growth pierced - it is worth this miracle, on the one hand the leaves rested against the glass, on the other - the curtain pushes back, because the space between the window and the curtains is simply not enough for him! so this is a second growth, still small, 25 centimeters and the leaves do not crumble, and the third has only pecked at all, and what will happen when all this grows! I hope I will bring the loggia to mind over the summer and keep it there, otherwise I can't even imagine what to do with it!

Well, when buying, as with everyone else - the leaves are even, without spots, the bulbs are strong (by the way, tsimb when the bulbs bloom does not wrinkle, if it has enough), and there must be at least three of them, the roots, of course, must be seen (although not phalanopsis, of course, they can be seen worse because of a denser, peat-containing substrate - he is a terrestrial orchid), well, flowers - it is desirable that at least half is still in buds, this is a guarantee that the plant has only blossomed, then the house will flourish, if he likes everything, for about 2 months.

There is an opinion

Freya: In my opinion, cymbidiums (hybrids, at least) are not just not complex orchids - they are the EASIEST and practically not killed! I would recommend them to newcomers. It is easy to bring fallenopsis to the grave, you need to pour it well a couple of times, and if you dry it well, and then pour it - this is for sure! And cymbidium was not there!

Here with flowering - some questions, yes, but in fact he needs two things: a bright sun and at least some kind of temperature difference, and not at all out of harmfulness, but so that the plant can accumulate the energy necessary for flowering, "rest" from daytime energy costs.

Still fresh air and the movement of it: on the street stood in the rain and only good, in the apartment - absolutely does not tolerate the ingress of water on the leaves, immediately black spots. But, in principle, all this is not so difficult. The hardest thing about tsimba is its size!