Dendrobium speciosum

The Dendrobium orchid family is a large one. They come in all sorts of sizes from plants the size of a thimble to plants like this one. This is one of the biggest Dendrobium in my collection although it’s a small example.

Dendrobium speciosum hails from New South Wales and Victoria Australia. Found as a lithophyte in open forests on rocks and cliffs from the coastline to about 150 miles inland. They can have pseudobulbs a couple off feet long and as thick as an arm.

Spring blooming spring with many fragrant flowers this orchid packs a hyacinth fragrance punch when in full flower. The scent from this plant can fill a room on a warm day.

I grow this robust, trouble free plant outdoors down to 4deg only bringing it in when temps threaten to drop below that overnight. Here in the Uk these plants require full sun in order to put on the growth through the year which enables the plant to flowering come spring.
During summer I give this orchid lots of direct afternoon sunlight and water and fertiliser freely. Importantly it’s the drier winter rest with no water or fertiliser that induces the flowering spikes. It’s important that no fertiliser is given from October on.
Normally grown in pots, I have found that this plant has an annoying habit of the new bulbs growing into the pot. The only solution for me was to mount this plant in bit of cork bark.

This species is one of the parents of Den Hilda Poxon which I have recently posted.

If you don’t have space for this monster then I’d suggest buying the elegant and much more easily sourced primary hybrid Den. delicatum which is just as easy to grow outdoors with the same regime described above. It has a similar fragrance and beautiful crystalline white flowers in spring.