Jerry in Indiana asked about Paph micranthum a couple days ago.
I have been collecting Paph micranthum since 1986 when they first
became widely available in the USA. I have more than 30 different clones,
and at least 10 of them I have been able to keep growing for 20 years. I
have had very little mortality, better than 95% of the micranthum I have
acquired are still around after all these years. I have to say Paph
micranthum is one of the slower growing Paphs in the hobby. I have some
clones of micranthum that bloom pretty much every year like clockwork. I
have some clones that have not bloomed yet in over 15 years. Fortunately
they are small plants, they don't take much room. The average seems to be
that it takes 3 to 5 years to mature a growth and get it to bloom. Every
year I bloom 5 or 6 plants, so as a group they preform well. If you want to
see one bloom every year in your collection, you need a bunch of them.
I am in the Chicago area, so my climate is similar to Jerry's. I grow
micranthum under lights in an unheated portion of my basement. I use
ordinary shop light fixtures suspended about 12 inches above the table on
which the micranthum sit. The fluorescent tubes are the cheap 40 watt cool
white lamps from the local hardware store. I believe this yields about 700
to 950 foot-candles of light. A timer is set to deliver 16 hours of light,
year round. I make no seasonal light duration adjustment. Fan in room
keeps air moving. In winter the temperature may drop into the upper 50's F
in January and February. Most of the year night temperature is about 65 to
68 F. In summer it can get quite warm, but it tends to stay a few degrees
cooler in this room than outside. In the midwest we get highs into the 90's
F on the hottest days. A window is open most of the year in this room, so
there is some day/night temperature drop, but not much more than 10 F. I
do nothing to increase humidity, there are about 200 mixed Paphs on this
bench, and the humidity they generate is the humidity they get. Relative
humidity probably varies between 25% in winter to 75% in summer. I grow
the micranthum in a seedling grade fir bark mix with charcoal & pearlite. I
generally use 2.5 x 2.5 inch pots, the tall style, I think they are 4
inches tall. Multi-growth specimens are in 4 inch pots. I top dress the
bark mix with small amount of crushed oyster shell that I get from the
local feed store that carries poultry feeds. I try to repot at least once
every 18 months, as time permits.
I do not let the plants get dry. This means I water every 4 to 5 days
because of my conditions. I use my local municipal tap water. This is Lake
Michigan water, about 225 ppm total dissolved solids. I add enough MSU RO
Formula fertilizer from GreenCare, to my tap water to yield about 250 ppm
nitrogen which when added to the naturally occurring solids in my tap water
makes about 700 to 1000 ppm total solids every time I water. Yes, I water
with this solution every time I water, all year round. My belief is that
continuous feeding makes it unnecessary to use ultra pure water for
irrigation. My thought is little fertilizer hides from the plant the fact
that the tap water is slightly unbalanced in sodium, calcium, chloride and
other minerals. I also keep my plants a bit wetter than some of the books
might recommend. I really do not let them get dry between waterings.
That is it, really pretty simple in terms of what I do for the plants. It
took me 10 years of experimenting to settle on the above. My micranthum
look good, nice leaf color, fairly robust growth. Through the 20 years I
have been growing micranthum, they have been disease free and fairly simple
to care for. BUT they have been very slow for me. I believe there may be
ways to grow them faster, but the way I am growing them now is good enough.
Micranthum is one of the few Paphs that I never get bored with. Still a
delight to see in bloom.
Good luck
Leo
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