Monday, September 17, 2012

Pretty (?) picture: Maxillaria tenuifolia

Not sure how I feel about this flower. Are they easy to grow? I could probably manage to like it, if it's easy to grow.


The tag said "Max. tenulifolia," with an extra "L," so we get to add one more to the big Orchid Show Error Scoreboard:

wrong tags: 6
incomplete tags: 1
missing tags: 9


7 comments:

orchideya said...

Very easy to grow and bloooms are very fragrant - smell like coconut pie.

Michael said...

in my experience they are normally really easy to grow, however that may vary depending on your conditions..... i know, its an irritating answer to your question, and one i've received so many times, but its really the most correct answer

Melody said...

Aww, I love this flower. Yes, this is an easy to grow orchid as long as you can water it often and give it a lot of light. It's tolerant of a pretty wide range of conditions, mine takes temps from 100+ down to 40 degrees F, no problem. Blooming it seems to be really easy for everyone except me, so although I'm not really a fan of my particular M. tenuifolia at the moment, I would still recommend it if you ever chose to try an orchid again.

sharon said...

tsk tsk...I hope you brougt it to their attention!

mr_subjunctive said...

Melody:

this is an easy to grow orchid as long as you can water it often and give it a lot of light

Ah. Not for me then.

sharon:

Alas, no. I didn't find out until I got home and tried to look it up on Google.

Paul said...

They are quite easy. I have to disagree with the "water it often" -- depending on what just "often" is exactly.

Mine is mounted which really ups the watering requirement. However, due to absentmindedness on my part or just plant laziness, it rarely gets watered more than once per week. I think my cacti have it easier. Despite this abuse, it has survived and actually is putting out some new growth. (Probably in hopes of getting my attention ... "See? I'm trying. If you'd just water me a bit, I'll keep growing. Really I will! Please? Water? Please?") In a pot with a decent medium, watering once a week or so should be fine.

While mine is grown in fairly high light -- SW window hanging on a plantstand, no supplemental light -- I am in Michigan which is not known for sunny winters. This said, I have seen blooming plants with surprisingly dark green leaves so getting a "lot of bright light" is obviously not etched in stone either.

Heather said...

This is way, WAY easier to grow than my collection of Phals. I just splash some water on it when it's starting to dry out and give it the same fertilizing and light as my Phals (east window). Also, it is currently my only orchid which does not have a reoccurring scale problem. It has been easy and trouble free for me, and has doubled in size since May when I purchased it. As an added bonus, I went to the arctic for a month and my husband forgot to water it. It responded by shriveling a bit and then going perfectly back to normal after one watering.