Re: A true gem...
 

aiyo...half the price from the 'stocks' that you acquire la......cheap sale..

Re: A true gem...
 

sir kristoff's pictures are really stunning, will try out this nep some years later when I'm settle with life first

Re: A true gem...
 

spectabilis really is probably my favorite species, that or veitchii, i cant decide lol. but only particular forms of veitchii, but i love all spectabilis, so i think there is your answer rofl.
It really is worth the trouble to get it to grow, in my opinion. before i had a greenhouse, my north sumatra spectabilis form was in a west facing windowsill and it barely did anything (washington kinda sucks for attempting to grow plants on a windowsill) and well, it just wasnt cutting it, so i had to make room in my indoor grow rack with my other highlanders which involved buying more lights, moving tiers, rearranging plants etc, and that seemed to help...it started to grow well, and even flowered for its first time. Last year when i built my greenhouse and got my neps in it, i had never seen so much robust, healthy growth. So it really surprised me that when i moved them into the garage under fluorescent lights, that they did so well. now i hope this year in the greenhouse, with some coffee and ferts, they provide even more outstanding, lush growth.

Thanks for the great comments guys :)

Re: A true gem...
 

hmm...i read somewhere on the coffee treatment and i also asked bout it somewhere but no response received, care to share some informations?*biggrin2*

Re: A true gem...
 

sure id be happy to contribute what ive learned from my experience with it :)
generally, in a majority of the plants ive treated with it (just plain old black coffee cooled to room temperature then poured through the roots) the plants have produced much larger, thicker and healthier leaves, as well as all around more robust growth, i believe you would have similar results with max-sea or a few of the other orchid ferts out there, the only orchid fert ive used is Schultz Orchid Food, and it gave some nice results.
For example, my rajah was looking pretty beat up from the previous owner, wasnt growing much...gave it a coffee treatment, now its growing faster than my N. truncata, and is rate up to pace with my N. spectabilis as afar as leaf production, and its no slow poke!
i think the common problem with "slow growing" neps is that they just are not getting the nutrients they require.
So basically, plain black coffee, poured through the roots every couple of months or even every couple of weeks, should in fact, yield in some very nice growth. for a show of just how well it works, check out Doug's post (DVG) on this thread here
http://lhnn.proboards.com/index.cgi?...ay&thread=3559

Re: A true gem...
 

hmm, i am trying to provide organic nutrients as much as possible for my neps.....does your media smells of stale coffee? or you flush them out the day after? i've tried once on my ampullarias, 1 pot with coffee, 1 pot with tea and another pot as a 'control'. the results for the coffee and tea is about the same, and i realised that the coffee and tea treated pots had a better growth rate compared to the 'control' however, the coffee treated pot has the foulest smell. :crying:

Re: A true gem...
 

I flush the pots two days after i give them the coffee to prevent any mildew or algae growth, i do not notice the coffee smell, my guess is if your media retains the smell, either your not flushing well enough, or the media is incredibly dense and not draining properly....

Re: A true gem...
 

hmm....i think that should be my problem as the media retained much of the coffee residue i guess....then i should restart the experiment again after reading your experience here....

Re: A true gem...
 

MT sells spectabilis at quite a good price. I don't think I can go with the coffee treatment yet(since my parents don't leave coffee overnight or day!) but I have seen the results on other websites and must say that it looks very convincing :smile:

Wish I could grow spectabilis, but since it's a highlander, it's a big NO-NO for me :sweating:

Re: A true gem...
 

i live by the seaside, 0.00 asl.......:1thumbup: