Gastrochilus japonicus are a miniature, warm to cool growing epiphyte found in Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan in mountainous regions on pine trees, other broad leaf trees, branches and trunks.
They do best mounted in semi shade and enjoy generous watering year round.
This little plant is one that I ordered when I joined the 2011 Spring Project on The Orchid Board forum.
The idea is that everyone who wishes to take part, purchases the plant that various polls determine. The orchid is usually an intermediate grower, so as not to pose too much difficulty for most people to provide its temperature requirements.
Everyone buys the plant at around the same time, and then updates and shares everything about it. What condition and size it is when it arrives, your growing conditions and how you plan to care for it.
The updates continue as it flourishes or declines in your care.
The best thing about it is that it is usually a plant that you might not consider growing and is a great way of introducing you to plants outside your 'comfort zone.'
The plant grew well and it flowered last December. It spiked of the main plant and from its keiki's on either side. The mama plants spike started to open first then followed by the left keiki, then on the right. And the scent was lovely, quite citrussy. I think it had about 70 blooms if my memory serves me correct.
I keep it in my Bathroom hanging off my Ascocenda Suksamran Sunshine in front of a south facing window. It gets showered every morning with quite hard tap water and sprayed with a hand pump at about midday if its warm and sunny, and then again at about 3pm if its hot and sunny.
It gets fed once a week with organic liquid seaweed when it soaks in the bath for about an hour or longer if I get distracted.
I have started adding a very dilute amount of growth orchid fertiliser to the spray bottle that I spray the Ascocenda with as it has started new growth, hence the Gastrochilus also is now getting this treatment.
It is growing lots of new roots and a lot of the old ones are branching with new tips. It has new leaves and little nubs I'm hoping are spikes.
Temperature wise it gets up to the top end of the twenties in the summer or low thirties.
At the moment its 19 to 25c on a sunny day.
In the winter top temps are about 19 to 22c when the heating is on and lowest at night of 13c but usually about 15c.
I have put up sheets of opaque paper along two thirds of the window to diffuse the sun now it is that time of year it is getting stronger.
The last third is where a couple of Ansellia africana and two Myrmecophila get lots of sun.
It did have a touch of frost bite in the winter when I stupidly put it too close to the window. The newest two leaves that had started to develop on the main plant died and have shrivelled but still are firmly attached to the plant. The leaves also became slightly dehydrated as I was giving it a slight rest to see how it reacted. It didn't appreciate this treatment at all so I began to water it generously again everyday and it recovered almost immediately.
I would recommend anyone to try this miniature as easy to grow and will flower several times a year.
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