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How To Water Catasetum Orchids: 9 Concepts to Master
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Oct 3, 2024
Catasetum orchids are different than most commonly known orchids sold in the supermarket or grocery store. It isn’t surprising that even Darwin was fascinated by Catesetum, stating, “I have reserved for separate description one sub-family of the Vandeæ, namely the Catasetidæ, which may, I think, be considered as the most remarkable of all Orchids.” Charles Darwin, 1862. Being deciduous perennials, Catasetum orchids will enter a severe period of dormancy, losing all its leaves and most of its roots. Watering is fundamental in this orchid’s life cycle since water will trigger or hinder its growth patterns. In this article, you’ll learn 9 concepts to master while watering your orchid. When watering a Catasetum orchid, you’ll need to understand: 1. When to start watering your orchid After Dormancy 2. What’s the best type of water to use for a Catasetum (pH)? 3. How Much Water to give While breaking Dormancy 4. How Much Water to Give When in Full Growth 5. When to Slowly Stop Watering the Catasetum 6. When to Fully Stop Watering 7. How Long to Wait Before Watering Again? 8. Watering after Repotting Catasetum 9. Emergency Situations to Water in Dormancy Before I explain each one of these situations one by one, it’s extremely vital to understand the way these fascinating Catasetum orchids live in nature and how they react to: temperature, humidity, light, and other environmental indicators. Catasetums are NOT found in tropical and subtropical rainforest, like most of the store-bought Phalaenopsis orchids we see in the supermarkets.
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Catacetum orchids are one of the trickiest orchids to start watering
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But once you get the hang of it and understand their natural life cycle, they're actually
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very, very easy. So in this video, I'm going to go over nine different signs that you need to be on the lookout
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for to know when to water your catacetum orchid, when to stop watering your catacetum orchid
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and how much water to do in between those. So the first thing to understand about when to water these
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is to understand how they grow in their natural environment. Now, catacetum orchids are not from tropical and subtropical rainforests
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They are from the hot, humid, lowlands and plains in the valleys of the south part of North America
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very south of United States, Mexico, Central America, Latin America, and the top part of South America
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So it gets really on that equatorial line. And these are not in forests
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They're in plains. They love to be on palm trees, on coconut trees, where the tree trunk, the leaves spread out
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That's where the catacetum orchid is going to lodge. And it's going to stay there
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And then it's going to dangle its roots down to the bottom, very bottom, where there's always water in that tree
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stump. In these areas where they grow, it's very rainy for a long period of time, like it will
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rain one to two hours hard every day, and then it will start to lighten up, and then it will have a
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period of about four to five months with no rain whatsoever. They are perfectly acclimated to
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these areas. That is why they have these huge, thick pseudobulbs, and they do so well, because they
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they store that energy and they lose all their leaves so they don't have to keep an active
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production of energy to keep these leaves healthy to keep these flower spikes healthy
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What they do is they go into a period of dormancy. And during dormancy, they do not get a drop of water for five months, four to five months
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Now, not all catacetum orchids are the same. So you really need to ask your vendor or your seller how many months of dormancy
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that each one will go through. So I start with dormancy because it's the easiest phase to imagine
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So imagine this phase with no leaves on here and no growth
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You see you have to ignore that. So just the suitable and no leaves, it's not doing anything
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The orchid has just been sitting there, lost all its leaves. That is a period of dormancy There are no new roots coming out It doing nothing That is the period of dormancy During this period how much water are you going to give it None None whatsoever You do
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need to keep your climate humid and that's one mistake that a lot of people make. The humidity
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is in the air and during night it will get higher humidity so that humidity will not
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permit this orchid to dry out all the way. You can miss the air
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you want to you can use a humidifier but do not keep this orchid in an extremely dry place i've seen
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some peat growers um take the pseudobul and lay them on like trays of wet sand and leave them there
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that seems to work i've never done that so the dormancy period you're just going to leave it
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don't water it leave it alone once the catacetum orchid senses this shift in humidity light and temperature
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these three things, it will start to produce new roots. And this is just a sign that it is coming
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out of dormancy and it's going to produce these roots. It's not raining yet. So don't water
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forget the water. When you see the new roots, that's the perfect time to repot. If those roots
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reach the old potting media and you can watch a whole video right up here about repotting a catacetum or
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it. If those roots reach the old media and have already buried themselves, leave it. Do not repot that year
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It's best that you don't. Once they enter the new potting media, they're going to be acclimated and
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adjusted to that new media. And it's going to be harder to take them out. The roots are very
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sensitive. They don't like to be handled. So repot it. As soon as you see that new root start spreading
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out, do not water. And when you repot, you can put moist sphagnum moss on here, not dripping wet
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If you water this, it will hinder the growth of the catecidum orchid altogether with those roots
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It will think it's watering time. I need to stop root production and start something else
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And don't worry because these pseudobulbs are the storage unit. They will hold up these five months
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easy, easy, easy. That's what they're adjusted to. That's what they're used to
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Mother Nature just knows what she's doing and she put this orchid with this huge suitable
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to actually survive these kinds of climates. Once you see those roots coming out, you have repotted, do not water, but yet raise the humidity
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The orchid needs to sense this rise in humidity to send out more roots
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And that's what the humid sphagnum moss is going to do. So these roots are going to grow from three to eight inches
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Okay if you can keep your orchid up to eight inches of roots and they going to grow down in this potting media all the way to the reservoir of water Those roots are going to sit here and just soak up because they love that water
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Don't water until you see that these roots have actually grown three to eight inches long and have reached the reservoir
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That is extremely important. So always yze. I mean, these can get very wrinkled
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before it's actually time. They're made for that. But if it gets extremely wrinkled
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like if this one here is plump, but if I start to see if the grooves
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really, really drive into the orchid and it's starting to totally deform water
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Once the roots have already reached down into the reservoir, then you can start watering your orchid
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You're going to start with a little. Remember, they're not accustomed to getting
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this water. They're going to have to learn. If you water this
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a lot. These roots aren't going to be able to absorb this. That water is still going to sit there
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because it is in a reservoir. So this water is just going to accumulate in the roots. So the roots are
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just going to rot because there's too much water, too much humidity. They can't absorb all that
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and they don't know what to do because they're not fully developed enough. So start watering slowly
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start putting water and you're going to fill up the reservoir until it comes out
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then the roots will be able to actually drink that water. There is bark in here
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And so it will absorb that humidity too. It's the perfect time to let those roots actually grow down and become strong and healthy
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Now, this period that I'm talking about here, repot, usually is around spring
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And it will take probably another month or so, probably not two months, but a month and a half
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to get these roots all the way down to where you can actually start
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start watering this orchid. Once you see the leaves come out, you can start increasing this water
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little by little because now the orchid is actively moving. It's not only producing these roots
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but it's also producing these leaves. So it's really used up all its energy. It really needs to get
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more water with a lot of nutrients in it. Once your orchid is in full growth and it has beautiful
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leaves, it has a beautiful flower spike. You need to drown this baby. And that's what the
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reservoir does. The catacetums are extremely thirsty orchids. That's why some people plant this in
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sphagnum, but I don't. So I use bark in the middle of it. I use sphagnum on top and bark in the middle
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Some people fill it all the way up with pea pebbles. Since my environment is extremely dry
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I have to use that bark in the middle. And in this phase, when it is in full bloom
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you do not have to worry about root rot I mean you can really really really water this orchid because the roots are fully developed and once they get that cycle of a lot of water they are going to
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absorb all that and your catacetum needs all that because, remember, it's going to go through a period
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it's getting ready to go through a period of dormancy. It's starting to store all this energy up
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and make that really thick suitable. Once the catacetum has these beautiful
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flowers, packs that usually last around three to four weeks and they fall off. And then the leaves are
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going to start to get yellow one by one and they're going to start to fall off. When the leaves start
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turning yellow, you're going to lessen the quantity of water. It's not going to use that much water
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because it doesn't have the leaves anymore. It doesn't have the blooms anymore. It's not useful to the
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orchid anymore. It still needs water, but a lesser quantity. So lighten that
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load of water, you don't need to water it as much as you had when it had these beautiful blooms on it
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When it starts to lose the first leaf, you're going to water less and less and less until the
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very last leaf falls off. That's when you halt the watering altogether. And why does this happen
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Well, it already went through that time period winter. It would rain every single day. And after the
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rainy season, the humidity would start to drop. And the, the humidity would start to drop. And the
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the rains would go ever so slowly, just, you know, rain today, then not tomorrow, then rain the next day
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and then two days not rain, and it would drop off until the next few months, it was no rain
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whatsoever. And that's when it's going to go back into its dormancy cycle and start all again
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You might be wondering, well, how do I fertilize this if I don't water it during those months
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Well, for catacetum orchids, I usually do the following. I will put a slow release fertilizer in between the layer of sphagnum and bark and put it to the side. So every time that I water, when it's in active growth, it will get that fertilized water. And these pellets will only last for six months, but of course, the catacetum also only last for six months. So when you use these slow release pellet pellet fertilizers, they're going to
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stay humid because the sphagnum moss is humid, but they're going to really slowly. Now don't stop your
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orchid care here. There are so many ways to learn how to care for orchids, and I can suggest these two
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videos right here where you can actually learn more about how to repot a catacetum orchid and also
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what kind of water to use. And this is a general, not just catacetum orchids. In all, thank you for
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watching this video, and I wish you the best in your orchid care
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