Have orchids to trade I meant to say.I am looking for catts, oncidiums, encyclias or any warm growing orchids that will do well in So.Fl. Allymarie

Allymarie, I want to get back to you. If it would be ok with you, I would like to wait until the fall for two reasons. First, that new hot water heater drained my gardening budget. :( Second, we are really moving into a bad time of year to ship tender plants in Florida. I think a bromeliad would make it just fine but begonias, on the other hand, I would worry about. Even with 2-Day Priority Mail, I am hesitant to ship rooted plants or cuttings. I'm afraid they will arrive "a hot mess". Can I contact you in September or October? Don't save anything for me... we'll just see if I have anything that would interest you then. Thanks! Carol

Yong, I don't have either cultivar but I saw them both together in Bullis' lobby display at the 2007 Bromeliad Extravaganza (see link below). It's kind of hard to see the difference from the photo, but Del Mar is the shorter, more compact one in the front, and the taller, more intensely blue spikes in the back are Blue Tango. Based on that, I'd say you have Del Mar. Shelldancer is an early Yamamoto cross of Ae. fendleri and dichlamydea v. trinitensis. Undoubtedly both DM and BT share this parentage too, but are more select clones. Blue Rain looks like it falls into the same category. These two species have quite an affinity for each other and cross easily. We have tons of seed grown plants from the same cross (insect pollinated) which we use for cut flowers. They can be somewhat variable but all have the same basic look. Blue Tango has the most intense blue coloration of any clone I've seen, though. I wanted to get one but was advised that the foliage is very prone to disease. Del Mar is reportedly much better in this regard, and the short spike makes it suitable for pot culture, but not what I'm looking for in a cut flower. Guess I'll stick with the seedlings for now. ;-) Here is a link that might be useful:

Hi travisalouie, Well in view of no other responses to your questions I will do my best to advise you. But I must point out that the info I give is based on what I would do if the plant were mine and growing under my growing conditions. You say "I have done some research and asked advice from some people and I keep getting conflicting advice." What you must realise is that everyons growing conditions are different and what suits one wont suit another, hence the difference in the advice you have been given. You say that when you repotted the plant, you were told to mix some of the old potting mix with the new. From what I have read there are two lines of thought on this, the first being that if you include some of the old mix from the pot of a "happy", well grown plant into the new mix, you will speed up the growth of the healthy bacteria in the new mix which is benificial to the plant. On the other hand, if you mix some of the old mix from an "unhealthy" plant into the new mix, you may well be introducing the cause of the plant being unhealthy in the first place. You also say that you "used a dry soil with moisture control and used another mixture of moisture control soil with miracle grow". I am unfamiliar with "miracle grow" but I assume the moisture control you speak of is similar to what we call water crystals which are used for water rentention in soil. If this is that case I see that you have used two lots of this and combined with the fact that the plant was siting in the gravel and water its obvious that the plant is suffering from excess watering and your mix is waterlogged and probably beginning to "sour" so I would dice the lot and start again with fresh. A good open Cymbidium Orchid Mix would probably suit your plant and if it didnt drain freely enough you could always add some small polystyrene peices to open it up a bit. Growing conditions vary greatly and no doubt mine are very different to yours. Because I live in an area close to the sea I need a very open free draining potting mix as the prevailing winds are usually moist sea breezes which tend to keep mixes a bit on the damp side. If however you were in a dry area you would need a less open mix to prevent it from drying out too quiclky. The mix I use consists of 70% ½" Pine Bark, 10% ½" Charcoal, 10% medium Perlite and 10% ½" polystyrene pieces. This suits my conditions but would possibly be too open and free draining for yours. When repotting, I always try and shake free as much of the old mix as possible, trim off any dead or damaged roots and then repot using new mix only. (I wouldn't add any fertilizer to your plant as it appears stressed and fertilizer wouldn't help at this stage) After I have done this, I would give the plant a thorough watering, starting by filling the vase to over flowing and then saturating the mix until water runs freely from the drainage holes, this will settle the new mix around the roots. When the surface of the leaves have dried off I would then use a watering can to give it a watering of "Seasol" mixed in water at the recommended rate for stressed plants. This would be applied to the leaves as well as the surface of the mix. I dont know if Seasol is available in your area but you could Google "Seasol" to find out more about it and perhaps get something similar from your local nursery. Seasol is like a "tonic" and can be used on all plants and especially helps with ones that are stressed. People often refer to Seasol as a seaweed fertilizer but technically it is a plant conditioner as it contains virtually no nitrogen or phosphorus therefore it can be used all year round, on all plants, and will not interfere with other nutritional input programmes. You say you are just comng into summer there so as for the position of the plant, I would say by looking at your pic its getting far to much shade and the light needs to be increased albiet gradually. Does that area ever get any direct sun or is it the shady side of the unit? If it does get direct sun you should avoid this as you should never move a plant from shade to full sun as this will caused excessive burning of the leaves and stress the plant even more. I would suggest you move the plant perhaps a couple of feet closer to the light source for a month or so and then increase it gradually until it is getting about 50% light with out any direct sun. I hope the above info helps in some way and I think the reason you havent had local responses is that your message was tagged onto an old post. If you had started a new post with perhaps a title of "Please help me", Im sure you would have been flooded with advice from US members of the GW. Feel free to ask any other questions you have as thats what this forum is all about, "sharing information" All the best, Nev.