How to grow Tiegu Su orchids? A detailed guide to daily management methods
"Tianxiang" is one of the solid-color orchids (suxin lan) produced in mainland China, commonly known as "Tiegu Suxin". Because its leaf shape, flower shape, petals, lip, and flower stem are all completely different from other solid-color orchids, it has a style of its own. Since this type of flower has considerable ornamental value, it is called the queen of solid-color orchids and is loved by orchid enthusiasts at home and abroad. "Tianxiang Su...
Tiegu Su, Jianlan (Cymbidium ensifolium)
After the Start of Autumn. Autumn orchids (also known as Jianlan) bloom in profusion, and the solid-color blooms all over the garden are like specks of white, decorating the orchid garden with extraordinary charm; drifting with the breeze, the whole new village is wrapped in waves of delicate fragrance. People have gained a deeper understanding of orchids, and more of a pursuit that if you grow flowers, you should grow orchids. Imperceptibly, this accelerated the popularity of orchids, giving a realistic foundation for orchids to enter thousands of households.
Among the many Jianlan, there is an ancient traditional variety -- Tiegu Su. Its leaves are the most vigorous. Its flowers are the most fragrant. Its plantings are the most numerous. Its price is the lowest. It propagates the fastest. Its flowering period is the longest. Its price is the lowest, and it is deeply loved by people. In Taiwan, China and Guangdong, there are orchid growers devoted to cultivating the Tiegu Su series, with a single variety numbering hundreds of thousands of seedlings -- what a momentum, how spectacular. It truly makes one yearn for it.
Tiegu Su: upright-leaf type, leaf texture thick and hard, V-shaped all the way to the tip. Length 30-35 cm, width about 1.0 cm. The leaf midrib tends to split when bumped. It blooms from August to October, the flower scape is slender and green, flower diameter about 4 cm, bearing 4-7 flowers, rice-white, with a rich fragrance that delights the heart. It is a variety among solid-color Jianlan in which both leaf type and flower type are small.
Tiegu Su is easy to grow but not easy to bloom. Some orchid friends have grown it for 5 or 6 years, or even as long as 10 years, before seeing it bloom. It can be seen that with ordinary growing methods, wanting to see flowers and smell fragrance every year is truly doubly difficult, because Tiegu Su itself is an inert flowering variety and requires some effort to show results. So how can you make good flowers bloom often and good fragrance be enjoyed often? My growing methods are as follows, presented for everyone's reference:
Method one: when buying orchids, choose robust seedlings kept connected as one body, preferably 8-10 seedlings. Such seedlings have strong vitality and recover quickly. If purchased in the autumn of the first year, by the spring of the next year they can adapt to the pot, and sprouting increases exponentially, so that by autumn they have the basic conditions for flowering. This is the key element for flowering.
Method two: during cultivation, light is most important. Because Tiegu Su's leaves have a thick leathery layer, they are very tolerant of sunlight; generally strong light of 50000 ls is no problem for it, only the leaf surface turns slightly yellow, and sometimes the grandfather-generation grass even has slightly scorched tips. But such sun-grown seedlings are the most likely to bloom. If growing Tiegu Su as an ornamental type, apart from winter, all-weather outdoor cultivation gives better results.
Method three: control water at the right time and withhold water to promote flower bud formation. For Tiegu Su grown in large pots, watering is key. If you water it like other Jianlan, it is very hard for flower buds to emerge. Ordinarily, only half the watering amount of other Jianlan is enough. Tiegu Su's leaves are of the waxy type, and moisture is not easily lost, so less watering is relatively beneficial to it. Starting in June, water must be withheld at intervals so that flower buds form.
Method four: repot less often and divide divisions sparingly. Generally speaking, Tiegu Su adapts to the environment very easily. If a pot of Tiegu Su has not become completely full, there is no need to repot; the fuller it grows, the easier it is to produce flower buds, and the number of flower buds produced will also increase. When repotting, you can plant the whole clump into a somewhat larger pot, and there is no need to divide it into single divisions of three to five seedlings for replanting; doing so will lay the foundation for blooming every year.
Method five: apply more phosphorus and potassium fertilizer, and use a little less nitrogen fertilizer. Phosphorus fertilizer is the foundation of flowering; starting in June each year, phosphorus fertilizer should be applied frequently to achieve the goal of producing and opening flowers. Potassium dihydrogen phosphate is the most commonly used flower-promoting fertilizer. You can also irrigate with derris extract, which is very beneficial for flowering. If flower buds still do not appear, you can also buy some hormone flower-promoting medicine from a flower shop and dab it on the inner side of the leaf sheath; for any robust mature seedling, one dab works immediately.
There are far more methods for promoting flowering than these. But for Tiegu Su to bloom, these methods are already enough. If orchid friends are interested, they may as well give them a try, and surely Tiegu Su that has not bloomed for many years will become filled with delicate fragrance.
Management of Tiegu Su
Tiegu Su is one of the widely cultivated famous and superior solid-color Jianlan varieties. Its leaves stand obliquely and upright, the leaf surface is relatively narrow, the leaf groove is deep, the leaf color is dark green, the flower scape is slender, and the flowers open 3-5 per scape in pale white, with a clear and elegant fragrance, formal flower posture, and a beautiful and lovely form.
Tiegu Su has strong stress resistance, a high sprouting rate, and is easy to grow, so it can spread widely. But many veteran orchid growers say that Tiegu Su likes to live in groups and should not be divided into many divisions, and that in cultivation it is not easy to bloom.
It seems that Tiegu Su is easy to grow, easy to propagate, fragrant and formal in flower, likes to live in groups, and is not easy to bloom -- this is the original character of its species, that is, the internal factor. The internal factor is the foundation of change, and the external factor is the condition of change.
The author has cultivated several tens of pots of Tiegu Su, and in recent years, with the problem of promoting Tiegu Su flowering, has paid attention to experimentation and observation during the cultivation process.
1. Overall cultivation of robust seedlings
For Tiegu Su to bloom, the first step is to cultivate robust, mature seedlings, so that they reach the basic standard of the Tiegu Su species nature, namely more than three leaves, over a chi in length, and a pseudobulb that is plump and solid, accumulating and storing enough nutrients for the consumption needed for flowering. This is the most important basis for Tiegu Su being able to bloom.
Through several years of cultivation and observation, the author found that weak seedlings, diseased seedlings, and immature seedlings do not bloom; for example, the pseudobulbs of that year's new grass and two-leaf grass cannot bear flower scapes.
2. Appropriately increase light
All things grow relying on the sun. Orchids are shade-loving plants, but that does not mean they do not need sunlight. Light is divided into direct light and diffused light, and orchids like to grow under diffused light (this is the basis for growing orchids indoors and on balconies). Light is a necessary condition for the chlorophyll in orchid leaves to carry out photosynthesis and accumulate nutrients. Appropriately increasing light can promote the differentiation of flower buds.
Based on the principle that spring orchids prefer more shade and Jianlan can take a little more sun, the author, in arranging the orchid pots, placed Tiegu Su in a more sunny position, letting it receive a bit more sunlight. As a result, about 80% of the orchid pots bloomed, and one pot of 30-40 Tiegu Su seedlings could open 4-5 flower scapes.
At the north-facing window of a four-story building facing south, the author added a 1.6 sq m aerial "¨"-style orchid rack with an iron-sheet tile roof above and steel pipes on the four sides and bottom. In it, 20 pots of Tiegu Su were placed; the orchid leaves received no direct sunlight and could only carry out photosynthesis with diffused light. But with ventilation and air movement on all sides, growth was rather vigorous, and after three years of cultivation, 8-10 pots bloomed every year. In 1994, the author cultivated two divided pots of Tiegu Su together with chrysanthemums, without shade, letting them receive all-weather sunlight. As a result, the leaf surface turned yellow and the leaf tips scorched; if not rescued in time, let alone flowering, their very lives would have been hard to preserve. This shows that light is an important factor for orchid seedlings to bloom, but not the only factor. The key is to appropriately increase light; if inappropriate, it violates the general principle that orchids are shade-loving plants, and of course there will be no good result.
3. Reasonably increase phosphorus fertilizer
In order to promote better growth of Tiegu Su and cultivate robust seedlings that bloom more, besides suitable light, moisture, and ventilation, appropriate fertilizer must also be supplied. For fertilization, a complete fertilizer containing nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, and trace elements is best.
In using fertilizer, targeting Tiegu Su's weakness of being difficult to bloom, and targeting the facts that phosphorus can promote well-developed roots and the development and formation of reproductive organs, while potassium is an important element for keeping the plant upright and its regular activities, and for disease resistance, the author, on the basis of applying a complete, fully decomposed liquid fertilizer, reasonably increased phosphorus and potassium fertilizer and achieved a certain effect.
Around Grain Rain and around Mangzhong, the author twice applied additional decomposed rapeseed cake (which contains more phosphorus) fertilizer water to Tiegu Su, and from Qingming to before Frost's Descent applied a foliar spray of 2 per thousand potassium dihydrogen phosphate once every 20 days. Through experiments in 96, 97, and 98, Tiegu Su bloomed more; not only did the number of blooming pots increase, but the number of bloomings and the duration also lengthened. There was even the phenomenon of one pot blooming twice, and sometimes in November and December flower scapes still appeared in the pot, but the later it got, the shorter the flower scape. There also appeared the phenomenon of single pots with four seedlings or six seedlings blooming.
In summary, that Tiegu Su likes to live in groups and is not easy to bloom is its species nature, but being able to bloom and being able to be divided is also its internal factor. It is necessary to fully mobilize its positive factor of being able to bloom, and adjust Tiegu Su's natural ecological environment, such as appropriately increasing light and reasonably increasing phosphorus fertilizer and many other external factors, so as to promote the positive, leaping development of Tiegu Su's internal factor of being able to bloom. From not easy to bloom to being able to bloom, blooming more, and blooming well.
May orchid friends who cultivate Tiegu Su come together to discuss the conditions for Tiegu Su to bloom, and may the Tiegu Su cultivated by orchid friends be able to bloom, bloom more, and bloom well. May this excellent Jianlan variety, Tiegu Su, be loved by more people.
First, control water in spring and spray potassium dihydrogen phosphate; second, put it in the sun and let it bask vigorously; third, grow it in large pots and cultivate robust seedlings.
Tiegu Su sprouts a lot and also grows easily; as long as it is cultivated in a well-ventilated environment, you can see flowers every year. The main issues are light, fertilizer, and water control; if planted properly, even two or three plants kept connected can bloom. In the south, Tiegu generally has two flowering seasons, and sometimes also three, in 5-6 and 8-9 months, or it may put on another round of late flowers. So after the beginning of spring, you can apply organic fertilizer, such as bean cake; once decomposed it will not burn the roots, and Tiegu's root system is strong and can absorb nutrients well, but if the seedlings are weak, then concentrated fertilizer is not suitable. After applying fertilizer, water sufficiently and maintain good ventilation of the leaf surface; at this time it can receive full sun to promote flower bud differentiation, while in summer and autumn you can put up one layer of 70% shade netting. If it is too shady or nutrients are insufficient, Tiegu is then difficult to bloom, hence the saying that Tiegu is hard to flower.