Mother Nature's Son Grows a Root
A young Cattleya spends six months quietly becoming established.
Tags: Plants • Orchids • Cattleya • BradCooke.com
Mother Nature’s Son arrived in February as the next project: a young Cattleya in a mesh sleeve, tall enough to fall over and planted loosely enough to do it often.
By April, the roots had deteriorated enough to require a cleanup and repot. Then came the less photogenic part of orchid recovery. The new lead grew a little. The leaves stayed green. The collection moved from Florida to Texas. The plant moved indoors under grow lights and continued doing almost nothing dramatic.
On July 26, a bright white root with a green tip emerged from the new lead.
That was enough. The new growth was no longer borrowing its future from the older pseudobulbs. It had started building a root system of its own.
Mother Nature’s Son is now published with the complete timeline from acquisition through that first new root.