Vanda bensonii

Here is what used to be a rootless cutting and now the roots are bursting out of the pot:



The coconut husk seems to have a nice effect on growing roots, at least I noticed it with cattleyas and vandas:



Vanda bensonii is now concentrating on growing some new leaves too. I am not sure how long it would be before it blooms, but am happy that it became a plant from a cutting and keeps growing.

Vanda bensonii

Cutting of Vanda bensonii got some nice new roots going in the basket with coconut husk chips. Because I was going to grow it in a vase, I decided to move her there now before roots grow wide to the sides and would need to be pushed and curled to fit. Now they can be nicely shaped by the vase.

Vanda bensonii or how to root vanda cuttings

Last spring I received several vanda cuttings with very little roots. I have planted them into small plastic pots with bark. After a while they started to decline and when I unpotted them to see what is going on - the existing roots and most of the stems covered in bark were rotting. One of them was large enough to have some stem left after I cut all the rotted parts.
It was Vanda bensonii cutting. I put it into vase as my other sedlings, and soon I noticed two small bumps appearing on the lower end of stem but leaves started to wrinkle very badly. Of course plant didn't have roots to supply leaves with water.
As the last resort I got creative and did the following. I broke the head off the plastic fork and stuck it through the round hole in the plastic 4-inch vanda basket. It fits that hole just perfect without moving, like a post.
Then I placed basket itself into 4-inch square plastic orchid pot, tied my vanda bensonii rootless cutting to the fork handle and threw in a handfull of coconut husk chips around the stem like this:


I placed it on the window beside my tiny Ascocentrum miniatum and Vanda coerulescens seedlings that live in the same arrangement (without fork though) and sprayed chc every morning with lukewarm water. After some while leaves plumped a bit, couple more month went by and yesterday I noticed a fat root nub on the stem above the medium level. I decided to see what is going on under chc and voila:

There are two fat roots, one started to branch and the third one on the way. Soon it will be ready for the glass vase. For being such a survivor Vanda bensonii is getting its label on my log today. Although it is its first appearance, I cannot log it under arrival, so I will enter it under HowTos since it does describe how to root vanda cutting...