FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

It's a dendrobium of some flavor. Use a mix of bark, perlite, and a touch of lfsm. Drench it then don't water again until it's almost completely dry.

Without knowing the exact species it'll be hard to tell you how to flower it. Some dendrobium just need a temp drop at night for a couple months to spur flowers. Many require a dry winter rest. Basically unless the canes get severely dehydrated/shriveled, you do not water it from Holloween till Valentine's day. This dry winter rest will result with flower buds forming. They like a lot of light but not direct light. Will do well under LED or T5 lighting.

*Edit* - Don't panic if it loses its leaves on older canes, most dendrobium are deciduous and will drop their leaves during their winter rest, new canes will grow the following wet season and have leaves again. Some dendrobium will only flower on older canes while others will only flower on first year canes, again, species specific.

That's about all I can tell you without knowing the exact species...

Jeeper

optique wrote:so the media its in now is around 50% LFSM, have have only watered after the top got crunchy dry.(inside this too 7-9 days) do i need to add more dry to the mix even if i can control myself when it comes to watering?

Does you mom have any idea or, better yet photos, of what the flowers were like? Better yet, does she remember if the flowers appeared along the length of the cane or from a spike at or very near the top of the cane?

If you have a bark mix available, ditch the moss entirely. Especially as humid as I imagine your area is, sphag will retain more water than its roots will want. [You could even grow it in a mix of those little expanded clay balls (Hydroton was one brand ... often found at hydroponic stores) if you wanted to.] Because this is its time of active growth, it can handle more water. Your bigger issue ... especially if you stick with sphag ... will be when temps cool down. Media may stay too moist.

optique wrote:to force a bloom i would be willing to take it in to the ac every night if you think that could help.

How cold are your fall through winter temps outside and inside the sunroom?

optique wrote:only ferts i have are maxsea, 10-10-10, 34-0-0, and osmocote

The balanced fert should be fine. Don't bother with the osmocote.

optique wrote:how firm is the no direct light? in my sun room i had it in 3hours of end of day direct light and it seemed to respond well. a new stalk was growing well. outside i have it on bottom shelf under trees.

Indoor direct sun and outdoor direct sun are two very different things. Outdoors, if hardened off properly, should have no prob with direct morning or evening sun. Direct summer sun during the hottest part of the might be too much. You'd have to work on hardening it off properly and then experiment a bit. I'd say more sun than it sounds like it is currently getting. Indoors, particularly during the winter when the sun tends to be weaker, even direct afternoon sun will likely be okay. Summer could be a different story depending upon what kind of air circulation you have and time of day.