Paph. St.Swithin divided.

That wasn't my choice of course, I like large plants with many fans. All I wanted to do - repot and check the roots.
Well, during unpotting the 4 rhizomes fell into two parts:




At the same time roots were still tangled together.
After long attempts to untangle them without much breaking - here is what I got:



Two plants newly potted:



The larger plant has old previously bloomed fan and new growth that I was hoping would bloom soon. Now of course plant got a huge setback and probably won't bloom for a long while. Smaller plant got two small growth, one of which lost many bottom leaves to some type of brown rot.
I returned larger plant to a windowsill and placed smaller one into tank.
We'll see how it goes...

Paph. St. Swithin

St. Swithin didn't mind to be photographed yesterday...













And I realized how ridiculous that green flower clip looks on the spike...

Paph. St. Swithin blooming

I am very proud now. Not only Paph. St.Swithin spiked under my care, but I also kept the bud from blasting and here is the result:



Only one bloom, but I can understand: after all these mites attacks plant doesn't have much energy...




Also it emits some strange fragrance, not floral at all, and I can't describe it.



There is a lot of details in the flower:




The whiskers uncurled and it appeared that one is a bit longer than the other. Even though bloom is not that colorful - I still like it.

And no, it doesn't live in my orchid tank. I just put it there to take pictures because that place seems to have the best lighting. St.Swithin still occupies the large window together with Lady Isabel and PEOY.

Paph. St. Swithin got whiskers

They are not straight yet, but I guess it means - the bloom started to open:



Couple more days and there will be a flower.

Paph. St. Swithin bud update

It has been couple weeks since last picture and the bud grew quite noticeable:



Humidity improved a bit and mostly stays at 40%, although during midday sun it drops for a while but climbs back after sun is gone.



Bud looks very small, I wonder if it will continue to grow before opening or I will have super tiny bloom. Still I like it.

Paph. St. Swithin weekly bud update

One more week went by and bud is still alive. It climbed out of the leaves some more and now I can see the actual spike:



It is first multifloral paph that spiked for me and I am not sure if it is a normal pace, but it defnitely grows faster than the last spike on Paph. malipoense.

The bud looks extremely small compared to the foliage and has only one head, even though this paph is multifloral:



Probably it will be not the best blooming because of all the mites and low humidity, but I am really happy that it did spike at all and am planning to purchase more of this type of paphs. Just "accidentally" I noticed that Clouds has BS Paph.W.Ambler listed on the website - another roth primary that I wouldn't mind getting...

Paph. St. Swithin update

This is just to document development of the bud on St.Swithin - about a week after the last post.



The fact that it came out a bit more from the leaves makes me think that it is growing even in my low humidity and brown stripe going through the top of the bud is probably there by design.

Paph. St. Swithin bud

I was really holding my breath since I noticed this bud and didn't want to jinx it by posting pictures but can't hold it anymore.
Here it is, a new homemade real bud developing on my Paph. St. Swithin:



My worries are concentrated around the humidity now. Both of my multifloral paphs live on the windowsill with south-east exposure. Glass has protective film to keep plants from direct sun but they still get lots of light and it gets pretty warm around them. As a result - humidity is very low:



Now, I could probably move some stuff around in my larger orchid tank to fit plant in, but St. Swithin had pretty bad mites infestation last fall, so I am worried that mites can still hide there and orchid tank rules state - no suspicious plants allowed.
Therefore, the bud might die from dry air any day.
But the fact that it appeared is pretty exciting and means that:
a) my plant is not a stubborn non-bloomer (like some of them might be);
b) my windowsill has the correct environment to induce the spike.

Looking at the picture I wonder if the brown line on the bud should be there or it means that bud is dying. Hope it is by design.
I mist the plant often trying to not get any water on the budding spot but it probably doesn't help much with humidity around the plant.
Hopefully the bud will hold until the warmth comes and heat drying the air will be turned off constantly.

Paph. St. Swithin update

Here is another multi hybrid - Paphiopedilum St. Swithin:



There are 4 fans on this plant, each of them is growing a new leaf. It also survived mites attack and lost bottom leaves from some fans.
St. Swithin shows more damage than Lady Isabel, the most annoying being rusty brown patches on many leaves.
Again, the roots area is the healthiest part of this paph.
I am hoping that humidifier will help with mites too, but also mist the foliage pretty often.

Even though Paph. St.Swithin is a mature plant that should be ready to bloom, I now more focused on getting it to grow healthy and pestless - nevermind blooming.

Paphiopedilum St. Swithin

This is another great purchase from Crystal Star. Large plant of Paphiopedilum St.Swithin - primary hybrid between rothschildianum and philippinense. It came in a 5.5 inch black plastic pot and has 4 growths which looked to me as two separate plants with two growths each.
When I started re-potting, I understood how not ready I was for it.
Firstly plant didn't want to come out of the pot. I pulled, I shaked I hit on the bottom - nothing helped. Finally I cut the pot open - luckily it was thin nursery pot and large scissors did the job.
This was inside:



Secondly - roots didn't want to untangle. I wanted to remove the old bark from the ball, so I placed it into sink with water and moved it around in swirly motions - everything stayed tight. I tried to untangle them with my fingers but it seemed that roots just grew to each other for good. My awkward fingers broke many good roots and I stopped. This is the best I could do:



Thirdly, it appeared to be a single plant after all, those two "separate" growths are actually connected by rhizome and to my horror I didn't have any plastic orchid pot that would fit all the remaining roots properly. So I had to pot it into clay one:



Probably would have to water it more often then if it was in a plastic pot.
Hopefully it will survive all these manipulations and environment changes.