That was no sunburn, I have had bad sunburn on my plants and that wasn't it, I was quiet on that post, but I suspected a virus or severe fungal issue. Having said that, I buy from Kawamoto frequently at shows and occasionally mail order and would not hesitate to buy from them again. They also quickly responded to a problem on one of my recent orders and immediately corrected it. EXCELLENT customer service. Now note that you had that plant for a couple of months and the plant could easily have picked up the problem whilst in your care. Kawamoto would rather make you happy than argue that point, customer satisfaction is very important in the hobby orchid world. It can be very easy for any grower to get bad press from an unhappy customer, even if possibly, the problem was never proven to be theirs. When I order plants, I immediately repot them and give them the once over, looking for any possible problem. I take pictures of plants and communicate quickly with source. It makes dealing with problems much easier.

Listen to Arthurm. Your plant needs more light. You should only fertilize when the plant is starting to make new growth which is usually spring. You can give a weak fertilizer throughout the year, but I don't. Grew these plants for many years in NY and they went outside in summer and gradually handled full sun on an open deck. This must be done gradually to prevent burning the older leaves. The newer leaves will adjust to the higher light as they grow. I would fertilize now and stop after the summer (or at least cut back to 1/4.) The yellow leaves are probably old leaves which is normal for a Dend to lose. The potting mix does not look good and the pot shows signs of fertilizer salts. I would repot and put the plant outside for rain and fresh air. Jane

I haven't grown either of these, but for what its worth... Peter Lin refers to sanderiana as a summer bloomer. Orchidwiz (based on Baker's) says it's from the south side of the Island of Mindanao in the Philippines, growing at 1-1500 ft. Blooming: Some Jan thru Sept, with peak in May. Very little Oct-Dec. For So Hemisphere, I think that would translate to very little bloom Apr-June, starting in July, with peak in November. (I'm basing this guess on time periods around longest day-shortest day. So sounds to me like yours is right on target, Arthur. My vote is for warm-up and longer days. BTW, I know you're not big on repotting, but a repot in April kicked off a frenzy of spiking in my summer bbloomers. Worth a shot-- a small investment and possible big payoff.

The jury is in on the cool greenhouse: it's not cool enough. After July 6th or 7th the real summer heat started and despite the swamp cooler the temperature crept up to and over 80F. Backyard temp has been over 90F, GH shot up to 82F. The GH temp, without cooling efforts, would be an easy 110F and up so the swamper is doing it's job. Anticipating this, I had a swath of Aluminet (30%) ready and installed it this morning. Covering the structure now is agricultural plastic (13% shade), regular black shade cloth (50% shade) and now the Aluminet (30% shade). About 10" between each layer. That seems like a lot of shade but standing inside, it is still not possible to look directly at the sun so plenty of light is getting through. With the Aluminet in place the temp today maxed out at 76F, 6 degrees better than the 82F of yesterday. 6 degrees in the right place make a lot of difference, I'm happy with the result. If I had been smart, I would have used 50% Aluminet to start with. This is my first experience with it and I would recommend it over regular shade cloth any time. The warm greenhouse performed as expected. With three sidewalls open for the top 2 feet and the cool greenhouse discharging it's cool, moist swamper air into the warm house, the temp never rose above the ambient temp of the backyard. In the winter the walls will be closed and a heater will spring into action. Nick