CULTURE 
WHERE TO GROW IT — Its position and treatment for the first two 
weeks after repotting have already been dealt with. What follows? By now 
it is generally accepted that it must be grown in a situation that gives good 
sunlight; that is, if you desire it to flower and not simply have it as a foliage 
plant. The plant needs sunlight, not just light, to induce adequate maturation 
of the new lead into the new bulb slowly and continuously as it grows. It is 
a question of photo-synthesis, chlorophyl formation and chlorophyl activity, 
and the bio-chemistry of the plant, light of the intensity of open sunlight for 
at least some part of the day being necessary to insure that these bio-chemical 
changes occur in adequate quantity and with adequate speed to produce 
maturation of the bulb by the time seasonal florescence is due to occur. Re- 
member, a bougainvillea will make luscious, leafy growth in shade, but will 
not flower. To flower, it needs stronger light, sunlight and an adequate num- 
ber of sun hours. It is so with your cymbidiums. The old idea of growing 
the plant in shade or relative shade and then, when the bulb is making up, 
suddenly withholding water to starve it, or “mature” it, is quite wrong. It 
is the maturity of the last-made bulbs that largely influences florescence in 
the new bulb, and that florescence is determined early in the life of the new 
lead, and its completed development is carried on by the new roots from 
the old bulbs replacing the energy withdrawn and later on by new roots 
from the new lead itself. 
That is why a cymbidium must be established and matured before it 
will flower. You may take a badly grown plant and grow it wonderfully well 
under healthy, hardy conditions and produce a mature bulb for the first 
year, but it may not flower. In the second year it will because there is enough 
maturity and energy stored in the first bulb you have made to start floresc- 
ence in the new lead in the second year of your culture. So realize these 
things: ((1) whether a new lead will flower depends to a great extent on the 
maturity of at least the bulb immediately behind it; (2) whether a lead will 
flower is determined early in its growth: (3) it may be going to flower and 
you produce miscarriage of the flower by bad treatment; (4) flowering is 
comparable to pregnancy—an attempt to increase its species—and the idea 
of starving any living thing when pregnant to make it produce its progeny 
is wrong; (5) a lead from a back-bulb will occasionally flower if the plant 
is well grown under conditions producing good maturity, especially if the 
back-bulb from which it started is vigorous and young, from a well-grown 
and well-matured plant. 
If your plant has been shade grown, start it off with sun in the winter 
or early spring and get it used to it. In hot, sunny weather, especially with 
hot, drying winds, see to it that the compost is not bone-dry. Think — and 
use discretion. 
If possible, perhaps at least for your better plants, raise them 18 inches 
off the ground on wood frames, standing the plants on slats so that the drain- 
age hole is between the slats, allowing ventilation. If the plants are placed on 
the ground, the watering softens the ground and the weight of the pot forces 
a plug of earth up into the drainage hole. Thorough ventilation of the com- 
post, to keep the roots hardy, is prevented; worms help to block the hole and 
drainage is impaired. Slugs and snails find ready entry if the pot is directly 
on the ground. 
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