Monday, July 03, 2006

Dracula disappointment

The great struggle between hope and despair continues with my dracula vampira. It had 4 spikes on it, one of which died a few weeks ago. Three continued to grow, and one shot out ahead with a bud developing really well. The bud continued to grow and measured about 3 inches in length in total this past Saturday morning. We left that same morning to go away for a couple of days (56 hours in total). When I returned early this evening, the bud had died. I was so disappointed!

Before:




I still have hope, however, as there are two more spikes that are still developing. I am determined to get at least one of them to successfully flower! The third spike which just lost it's bud is still alive, unlike the first spike that dried up completely. I have a couple of theories in terms of what happened. The room where the Dracula lives was 25 degrees tonight, which is pretty warm. Normally we open the windows in that room for some air circulation and to lower the temps a bit. We also left the lights on in that room the entire time that we were gone. One of those things likely contributed to the death of the bud, although I like Jenn's theory best: "Maybe it can detect that your house is devoid of fungus knats and so it thinks 'what's the point?'"

After:

2 Comments:

At 11:02 p.m., Anonymous Anonymous said...

I think you shall definitely have success with at least one of the other buds! Hang in there!

 
At 10:39 p.m., Blogger Christina said...

Ack! I was fearing something similar would happen to a dendrobium bud I left at home for 7 days. I just came back and was happy to find my bloom had survived and opened, though a little mishapen. The petals aren't aligned right. It should have had 2 flowers, but in the end only one matured. I'll send good growth vibes your way!

 

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