Recently a long time and valued member of the local orchid society is letting go of their collection due to poor health and hospitalizations. Unfortunately this mean that they had had little time and ability to take care of their orchids over the last few months.
I took a few of their Cattleyas home, all specimen sized and were award winning (local and AOS awards) the plants are at least 20-30+ years old and obviously well loved. Unfortunately- over the last few months they have need been able to receive the best care due to health issues and developed a pretty severe Boisduval scale infestation along with some heat damage and fusarium (from what I can tell issues) also with being very under watered.
All the plants are isolated from the rest of my collection… I did a quick clean up on them today – see before and afters (removing old, dead growths and sheaths) and an overall assessment. I hit them with a broad-spectrum systemic copper fungicide and bactericide.
Tomorrow I plan on removing as much visible scale as possible manually with a toothbrush and isopropyl alcohol. Then hitting it with a systemic insecticide. Then repeating the application in 4-5 weeks.
Wish me luck and give me all your tips on rejuvenating these plants! These are truly heirloom Cattleyas and would be a shame for them to not be in all their glory and flowering!
Plant 1: Cattleya Purpurata x Pulcherrima – 6 new leads!
Plant 2: Lc. Wigleyi- 13 new leads
Plant 3: Blc Hawaiian Nightlite x Lc Memoria Robert Strait (splash petals!) – 16 new leads.
by Stubbiest_Guiseppe
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