Fragile yet tough..that's what I call my Oncidium Sharry Baby. This is the first year that I have this plant, got her from the Pacific Orchid Show last Feb 2013. At that time it was already laden with blooms. By mid-May the flowers have expired, followed by the spike, which is okay with me, it did give me about 1.5 months of showing. So as with typical Oncidium care, gave this plant its daily watering, and you can visibly see how happy the plant is..existing pseudobulbs firm and plump, and later on I saw new pseudobulbs coming about..I think there are three new ones.
To my surprise, it started forming a new spike in June 2013. Awesome! Now this would be a flower spike in my care. So still providing its daily watering..and it does like its location inside my Growcamp. The cross breeze passing through the water fountain helps it and the other orchids a lot as summer temperature starts to roll in.
And then the dreaded week-long heat wave came this early July! I was so afraid for the orchids! Our area is so dry, humidity is so low and with the exacerbated heat, it is amplified even more. Got to step up watering on all the orchids, especially the Oncidiums. By this time the flower spike is getting full with blooms. I was really expecting it not to endure, since there were days when temps will hit 109F and will eventually settle ambiently not any lower than 100F..and this lasted for the entire week.
Thankfully, my Onc. Sharry Baby survived the heat wave, not blasting any blooms nor damaging any leaves. Just went okay! Whew..what a relief..as long as it got its daily shower early in the morning, it ably endured. Wish I could say the same with my Vanda coerulea and Odontonia Papageno, though both are on the end phase of the bloom cycle, still the heat wave really hastened the blooms demise..but my fragile toughie Onc. Sharry Baby survived nicely with flying colors!
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