These are all hard cane dens and are acting as dens do. Old canes will not grow roots, only the new. The older canes will loose their leaves or just keep a few up top. Your plants are not nobiles. They should flower this winter if given enough sun.

Jane

While these are deciduous, they don't necessarily drop their leaves every year. Some hold them for two years.

Hard canes are not deciduous dendrobiums. They should retain their leaves on older canes for many, many years and, if cultured right, will bloom on both old an new canes.

When I lived in Queens I kept my dendrobiums on a east facing fire escape. They all got sun from sunrise until around noonish and they loved it. Dendrobiums like it bright and you should get some great blooms from yours.

where are you located now? Manhattan?
My kitchen has eastern exposure and I can see some plants thrive because they get the early rising sun.
I am on the second fl and my bedroom windows are south exposure and the sun is high in the sky and gets filtered by the fire escape a bit. but recently i had a couple of plants with leaf burn as the weather finally got hot when there is just one month left of summer.

do you still keep yr Dens on the window sill?

Yea, I'm in Midtown now. I don't have an outdoor space anymore but do have a wall of s/e facing windows that I supplement with CFL's. No longer grow any dendrobiums but have around 50 other orchids. Mostly species w/a couple hybrids thrown in for good measure.

Why did you give up on Dendrobiums? do they grow too big? I am a novice - I think I am way more interested in species. I would only get hybrids if they are at a really good closeout/sale price... just got an Oncidium NOID for $2 at lowes. 3 or 4 bulbs - will try water culture in a vase. someone on orchidboard seemed quite successful with cattleyas and oncidiums...

I am interestd in Den species,

The problem with Hard-Cane Dendrobiums is winter. Where are you going to place some of these monsters with three foot canes? One grew to 6 foot. Needless to say i no longer have it.

As for Dendrobium Hollywood. Not registered in the RHS register of hybrids so who knows what is in the ancestry. Some are easier to grow than others.

If you are a Novice you should be trying to grow what is easy in New York.

Just taking a break from the local Society winter show. There are 200 plants in the display. There is ONE Vanda and nil Hard-cane dendrobiums. Anyway, ask the locals what is easy in New York and follow the fundamentals for things such as Cattleyas and Oncidiums forget about culture in Vases.

Stepfix, what might have burned your leaves is the now lower angle of the sun. The sun has been lowering in the sky for the last two months, since June 21. It is the angle of the sun that caused the damage. Every spring and every late summer, as the sun changes position in the sky, the angle changes. In late summer this will last for a couple of weeks until the sun gets weaker, and in the spring it will last until the sun climbs higher.

Most of my dendrobiums were mounted. In my old apartment I just hung them in the window over the winter and then moved them to the fire escape in late April. Now that I don't have the outdoor space, it's just to much work growing all those mounted dendrobiums.