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The “ Lady of The Night ” Brassavola nodosa is a PRETTY and EASY orchid to originate at home .
call lady of the night because of its delicious evening fragrance ( likeYesterday Today and Tomorrow plant ) , this modest first cousin of the showy cattleya has delicate flower with long minute greenish - snowy sepal and petals .
Its pure white heart - shaped sass fans out from a slender white tube which often has tiny majestic dot in the throat .
A individual well - open flush may value over four in across , but the measurement is deceptive since the sepal and petals are so slender and lacy .
The lip , on the other mitt , though only about an inch and a quarter across , is so glitter bloodless it looks much larger .
Meeting Brassavola Nodosa in 1970
My first coming upon with Brassavola nodosa was at an orchid nursery I started working at in 1970 .
naked root plant were bought it from an orchid importer along with some other orchid plants ( Oncidiums ) get together from trees in Central America .
A mass of tough pencil - similar leave ( slightly bug - chewed ) atop a dry out - up root mass , unpotted and in a country of forced quiescence .
Some had apparently been growing up a upright branch , as its leaves were almost parallel to the origin .
“Planting” Lady of the Night on Tree Fern
One of my first job at the glasshouse was mounting the Lady on the Night Brassavola on small slabs of tern fern by fastening the antecedent mass on the slab with phone telegram .
Over the twelvemonth the nodosa , a hardy little practically unkillable plant , withstood the military blockade and care of a young soon to be a commercial grower .
Along with red-hot and cold , cheer and dimness , dryness and humidity of south Florida .
When first mounted , the nodosa plants , received water only by spraying the leave and wetting the slab every few days . shortly fresh roots start to look .
The tooth root show on the surface would get green all over when wet .
The plant did n’t postulate lacrimation again until the root returned to their normal white color and the slab or if pot is almost exclusively ironic .
The only upkeep given was monthly software of very dilute house plant fertiliser and semi - weekly to hebdomadal waterings .
During the affectionate leap and summer calendar month tender new emergence began .
In the lustrous , hot and stuffy , shade mansion the staunch nodosa was perky and happy , with its new growths reach four to five inches gamy .
Then it take place .
The First Brassavola Flower Shows
I noticed the bakshis of a efflorescence stiletto heel poking its nozzle above the papery sheath that enclose the base of one of the immature growth .
With excitement I watch over while the spike develop , divulge two , three , and finally four bud .
In early August each bud was about two inches long , and the first one begin to open .
In two or three days all four of the flowers had totally spread and lucubrate to their full size of it and beaut . They go about two weeks .
I was fascinated !
During “ bloom time ” I stayed late several evening to have the fragrance my boss told me was the ‘ Lady of the Night ” .
Each evening from about seven to eleven the flowers poured forth their delightful light fragrance – nectarous enough to make growing the plant worthwhile even if the blossom were not so magic to look at .
No sooner had the blooms faded I mark swelling bumps at the bases of the season ’s now - mature emergence .
The bumps shortly exact shape and became a unexampled set of four growths .
When these were barely beginning to form roots in October , my party boss had me cut the rhizome at several places and divide the flora into three sections which we pulled asunder and mounted separately .
This was so the young growth would have room to spread out without becoming intertwined and mat as they were threaten to do .
After this “ repotting ” , the new increment promptly send out rootage onto the tree fern slab .
They mature during the winter , but probably because of being drastically interrupt twice in a yr , no salad days developed on that good deal of maturation .
New Year, More Blooms and Nodosa Goes Home
The next yr a fresh quite a little of eight ontogeny was happily take form from last growths and from dormant “ eyes ” on old growth . These get apace .
In early of the next class , long before I ask it , the first peak spike could be seen – and another new round of growths was already starting as well .
By the clock time the first of the four blooms on that spike began to open up two more bloom spikes appeared and were develop nicely .
The three spike yield uninterrupted peak for over a calendar month .
Even dainty than the increment in heyday over last summer is the fact that this twelvemonth ’s efflorescence were produced with the plants model decently in an opensouth window sill .
No dish of dampish stones underneath to supply extra humidity , no special care .
The nodosa stay fresh increasing the number of growths and blossom it made each prison term . Since the plants are heavyset they can farm on a windowsill in four to five - in Henry Clay corporation .
One big plant taught me many orchid uprise lessons and furnish me with sight of bloom of youth to enjoy on the plant .
And all from a $ 2.00 imported works ( 45 + years ago ) .
If you would wish to get a Brassavola nodosa there are commercial-grade orchid agriculturist sell set up plants they propagated .
You should be capable to buy a gracious established blooming - size plant that will not want repotting for two class . It will probably be smaller than the original plant , I started with but it should grow and multiply quickly .
