FENNEICCS 
ORCHIDIINEWS 
& 
| PENNELL'S ORCHID NEWS 
From The Orchid Jungle 
Published By 
ae 
FENNELL ORCHID CO. 
Homestead, Florida 
CULTURAL HINTS 
DRY SHEATHS. The greatest false 
alarm with which we have to deal is 
the problem of dry sheaths. We receive 
many letters from customers during the 
winter and early spring complaining 
that the sheaths on their plants are 
dead or dying and ask what causes the 
trouble. 
Actually this isn’t a trouble at all 
it’s a perfectly natural occurance. Over 
half of the flowers produced by Catt- 
leya trianae and nearly all the flowers 
produced by Cattleyas Skinneri, Moss- 
iae, Mendellii and their hybrids are 
regularly and naturally produced 
through dry, dead looking, brown 
sheaths. Generally any flower sheath 
that stays on a Cattleya plant more 
than 38 or 4 months without flowering 
will dry up and turn yellow, then brown. 
This has nothing whatever to do with 
whether or not the buds will be 
produced. 
The only sheaths to worry about are 
those that turn wet looking and black. 
These should be removed immediately 
as they are rotting and are caused by 
too much moisture. You can often re- 
move them carefully without injuring 
the small buds or the bud tip, and the 
plant will then flower normally. If 
rotting sheaths of this type are left on 
the plant they invariably kill the buds. 
IT PAYS TO FEED.— We have been 
harping on, this subject for a long time 
because we know from years of expe- 
rience and many experiments with 
thousands of plants that it pays to feed 
your orchids. In the recent South Flo- 
rida Orchid Show one of our plants won 
the sweepstakes prize for the best spe- 
cimen orchid plant in the show. It was 
a nice young plant in a 7” pot bearing 
7 flowering growths with 24 fine large 
flowers. This plant was not an accident 
—it was the result of consistant use 
of our Fenorco Plant Food. 
Here are a few letters from 
customers— 
JEAN HERSEY 
R.F.D. 2 Westport Connecticut 
Phone Westport 2-6767 
October 20, 1952 
Dear Mr. Fennell, 
Could you send me some orchid 
fertilizer? Seems to me you had a one 
pound package for $1.75. I’m enclosing 
a check for that sum. 
Actually what you said came true: 
wherever there was a pseudo bulb with 
srowing enthusiasm, instead of one eye 
leveloping, both did. Consequently we 
ive twice aS many flowers as before 
yefan using it, and those twice as 
ge. And the plants are growing by 
ps and bounds.. 
ood luck to all your projects. 
The Daffodil orchid is a honey! 
Sincerely, 
(Signed) Jean Hersey 
© 
‘ontinued on Page 8=-Column 2) 
PHALAENOPSIS DORIS 
spray orchid. See plants listed on this page. 
A lovely spray of this fine large pure white 
PHALAENOPSIS 
Phalaenopsis are, we believe, near the top of the list of gorgeous 
and interesting orchids. Their long and graceful sprays of beautiful 
white or pink flowers outlast most orchids and the plants are easily 
grown. 
A couple of years ago some small experiments on growing Phalae- 
nopsis in osmunda with the pots sitting in pans of water were carried 
out at Cornell. When we repeated these experiments with larger num- 
bers of plants here at the Orchid Jungle we did not have complete success 
but when we added a nutrient solution of Fenorco plant Food to the 
water and changed the osmunda to a charcoal mixture we had much 
better results. Even under these conditions, however, we had enough 
failures to make us look for a better method. We think we have that 
method now, at least we have been growing several hundred of the plants 
in pots of lump charcoal and osmunda with intermittent subirrigation 
of nutrient solution for the past year without a single failure and with 
uniform strong growth. 
The method is perfectly simple. You merely pot the plant in lump 
charcoal with just enough osmunda to enable you to keep the plant 
firmly in place. 
You water and feed the plants by setting them in freshly made 
nutrient solution up to the bottom of the rim of the pot for about four 
hours every three to five days according to your growing conditions. 
After soaking the pot remove it to a saucer to drain. As long as you 
keep active root growth and firm leaves your plant is getting enough 
water and food. If the leaves become limp but the roots are alive, in- 
crease frequency of watering. If roots die, repot plant and start again. 
There are many kinds of Phalaenopsis as shown below. The most 
popular are the large flowered whites as their flowers last longer and 
the spikes can be made to reflower so that they can be made to bloom 
over a long period. 
PHALAENOPSIS DORIS — The best known and one of the finest of all 
the large flowered white Phalaenopsis. Each flower stem can be made 
to flower several times (by cutting the stem behind the last flower after 
the flowers have ‘faded—instead of cutting the stem back at the base of 
the plant.) Some of these plants have faint stain of pink in center of 
flowers. 
No. 98 — Plants in 4” pots, leaves 6” to 8” across longest dimension 
. $8.50 ea. 
sa daewareih al dete ee $15.00 
(Continued on Page 7—-Columns 2 & 8) 
No. 99 —Two plants as above only 
