Corybas success?

There are lots of advanced growers in this forum, and I thought that some of you might be willing to share success and failure of Corybas culture. I managed to order 2 Corybas species before I research about the plants, and I'm not finding much info about their culture... I'm getting the tropical Asian Corybas: Corybas calopeplos & C. geminigibbus (plants from Ooi Leng Sun).

There are some info in the thread started by goods (Zach) here:
https://www.orchidsforum.com/threads/corybas-geminigibbus.6163/#post-52709

Magnus (I think he posts here, too) has some success:
http://www.orchidboard.com/community/miniatures-show-tell/10648-corybas-hispidus.html

Also Andrew in another forum seems to be successful: http://www.orchidboard.com/community/miscellaneous-other-genera/51696-corybas-incurvus.html

Any tips (or how you managed to kill them) are appreciated!

 

Thank you for sharing your experience, Zach! I saw your threads; that's too bad yours didn't survive. Are they summer dormant like Australian Corybas?

Unfortunately, I might not get the plants in a good shape. The seller shipped them 2 weeks ago, and they are still traveling on the boat from Seattle to Alaska like the good old days... I'm supposed to get it this Thr (after 17 days of travel). I can't understand why the seller (he is NOT the person you are guessing) thinks USPS Standard (Parcel) is appropriate for the humidity sensitive plants.

 

Yes, Marni, the difference in the cost is fairly small. I think that USPS price to AK is similar to that within lower 48 (due to government subsidization). For huge items (or heavy items), USPS Standard can be quite a bit cheaper. The seller claimed that the box was heavy, but I can't imagine that for 20 or so small mounted plants.

Yep, Chad. The same seller with whom you had a shipping issue...

I'm hoping that most of them are ok; the boat ride was pretty comfy when I took a ferry from WA to Juneau to Seward, AK. I hope the plants are enjoying the ride!

As a side not, I'm quite impressed with the improvement in USPS customer service recently. The last tracking update was "Departed Federal Way, WA" from June 13, and there has been no update since. When I emailed USPS, I heard back from them within 24 hours, and explained that they are on the boat, so no update in the tracking. I don't remember they ever replied to my email inquiry a couple years ago.

 

Kelly, many plants in the shipment was dead on arrival after the boat trip: 8 dead and 11 were in severely dehydrated conditions. Some of them are still recovering slowly. Corybas were completely dried out.

Are you growing Corybas?

I received the 2 species of Corybas directly from Ooi Leng Sun this May during their visit to Redland. They are surviving, but not much changes other than the initial leaves became bigger and seeing more roots produced. I don't think they are doing great, but here is what I'm trying.

I'm trying two potting media.
1. Espoma Organic Cactus Mix for Cactus, Palm & Citrus:Coarse Perlite=1:1 in strawberry container.
2. coarse Perlite (45%), backyard moss (30%), Carquest UltraSorb 100% Diatomaceous Earth, Item # 8826, Moltan Sorbent ($16/25lb) (10%), Better Gro Med Bark (10%), river sand (5%)

They are either in strawberry plastic containers or baby spinach plastic container (with 10 holes drilled to the top and bottom). I put bunch of 1cm square cut-up cardboard at the bottom.

I don't water much (maybe once in 10 days or so), but they are kept pretty moist/wet. 70-75F/50-60F.

Corybas geminigibbus (this individual seemed to have produced 2nd leaf actually). This is the only one surviving out of 4 plants.



Corybas calopeplos (3 are surviving out of 4 received)

 

I just started to grow terrestrial orchids in the last year or 2, so I don't know what I'm doing to be honest!

TommyMiami in OrchidBoard had some success with these two species.

It wasn't dormant when I received them. I ordered two of each species. Some of them were bigger. I think the smaller extra ones are the ones which died. Here is how they looked when I received them.

 

Unfortunately, they aren't doing well. I think 1 or 2 additional C. geminigibbus came out much later. One of them still has a small leaf. The others dropped leaves in the last couple months. After they stretched the leaves and roots, they didn't do much. I'll keep them for a while to see it is dormancy or something, but I think they are dead.

 

Ree, I'm not sure how I would do it differently. I would like to try it again, but until I find some more info, I'm not going to try again. The last batch arrived in decent conditions, so I apparently didn't give an appropriate environment.

Did you get any?

 

A relatively good news! They weren't dead. I'm actually super excited. We'll see how the second season will be. A lot more details about this in my blog (Orchid Borealis).

Corybas geminigibbus on Flickr

Corybas geminigibbus on Flickr

CORRECTION: The leaf photos in the Message #8 in this thread is both Corybas geminigibbus, not C. calopeplos. They were mislabelled.