• Skip to main content
  • Skip to footer

Bonsai Tonight

An educational website about bonsai development

  • Blog
    • How-to Guides
  • Podcast
  • Shop
    • Bonsai
    • Books
    • Soil
    • Soil (wholesale)
    • Supplies
    • Tools
    • Video Consulting
    • Northern California Bonsai Resources
  • About
    • Workshops

Effect of soil mix on bulb production for Habaneria radiata

April 14, 2017 by Jonas Dupuich

In previous posts about growing media for the terrestrial orchid, Habaneria radiata, I set up an experiment and shared some preliminary results based on observed foliar growth. It turns out that the most important measure of success was under the soil.

Here are the orchids at the end of the growing season last December.

Orchids in December – not much to see

Terrestrial orchids like Habaneria grow from bulbs that become depleted as shoots emerge in spring. Once the plants mature for the season, new bulbs are created to support the next year’s growth. This process is easy to see in winter.

Healthy bulb next to shell of previous year’s bulb

Each container started with four bulbs in spring. By counting how many bulbs there were in December, I could determine which soil produced the best results.

I decided to check one container for each kind of soil.

As you’ll see, numbers don’t tell the whole story. While some mixes produced lots of bulbs, many were quite small. Because I measured only a third of the bulbs I planted, I don’t have a lot of data to go on, but it seems clear that the bulbs liked some mixes more than others.

Medium pumice – 10 bulbs

Kanuma – 10 bulbs

Bonsai soil – 10 bulbs

Orchiata – 10 bulbs

Akadama – 8 bulbs

Potting soil – 7 bulbs (the 8th isn’t viable)

Decomposed granite – 6 bulbs

Unsifted pumice – 5 bulbs

Based on these very limited results, the big winners are medium pumice, kanuma, and bonsai soil. Each of these soils turned four bulbs into ten during a single growing season.

Although all of the soils produced more bulbs than I started with, many of the bulbs were smaller than the previous year’s. An example of this is the five small bulbs produced by the unsifted pumice.

Potting soil, on the other hand, produced the largest bulbs, but didn’t produce the greatest number of bulbs.

I washed and dried the uprooted bulbs and stored them in plastic bags that I kept in the vegetable drawer in the fridge during winter.

Ready for winter in the fridge

I left the rest of the bulbs in their pots as I was curious whether it’s better to leave the bulbs planted during winter or to uproot them and store them in the fridge until spring.

A few weeks ago I planted the refrigerated bulbs and all have sprouted in the garden. Many of these went back into pots filled with pumice or kanuma, while the others were added into various accent plants throughout my garden.

I don’t know that there’s a lot more to measure at this point, but I’ll be sure to share anything I learn about the bulbs going forward.

✕

Subscribe to Bonsai Tonight

New Posts Delivered Every Tuesday and Friday

Success! Now check your email to confirm your subscription.

There was an error submitting your subscription. Please try again.

We won't send you spam. Unsubscribe at any time. Powered by ConvertKit

Filed Under: Bonsai Care Tagged With: Accents, Orchids

Previous Post: « Reducing branch vigor on black pine bonsai
Next Post: Identifying suitable material for bonsai – part 1 of 5 »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Michael says

    April 14, 2017 at 8:41 am

    very nice. i really appreciate the attempt to be scientific. As a retired oncologist who saw many promising new drugs turn out not to work so well five years later, i remain a sceptic, and wonder why we don’t do more studies regarding bonsai care. I hear speakers at our club give wildly different advice on care, soil, etc, and i wonder if there is an organized way for several clubs to get together, set up a few projects for our regional ‘terroir’ and answer some basic questions. The first questions would include what questions are really important to us….

    • Ryan Huston says

      April 14, 2017 at 12:46 pm

      I agree on the lack of scientific approaches in bonsai. I’m developing some experiments of my own to answer my own questions that I couldn’t find bonsai data on. And I plan to post the setup and eventual results to my blog someday.

Footer

Follow Bonsai Tonight

Subscribe

Instagram ● Facebook ● Twitter
  • Blog
  • Podcast
  • Shop
  • About

P.O. Box 6560, Alameda, CA 94501 · 510-915-2025 · jonas (at) bonsaitonight (dot) com

© Copyright 2009-2023 Bonsai Tonight · All rights reserved · Privacy · Log in

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. You can opt-out if you wish. Accept Decline Read More
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT