Caring for Mini Cattleya Orchids

Video Transcript

"WILLIAM HUTCHINSON: One of the problems for window sill grower if they want to grow the cattleya alliance is how do you take a plant that's three and four feet tall and have a comfortable arrangement of plants growing in your window sill? The answer is it's very difficult. The breeders know this and they're interested in selling plants. So what they've done is they've gone into some of the wild species that are naturally tiny and one of these is the Sophronitis. Sophronitis is found in the high forest of Brazil growing in the upper limbs where there is a good deal of sun available to them. A mature plant like this will often have a flower that sometimes will range up to two and a half inches across and be a bright, bright red, even brighter than a fire engine. And what they do is they cross this and they'll produce a plant of about the similar size, maybe a little bigger leaf and it will have flowers again, up to three inches across."