Wine Cooler

It arrived in the evening of Thursday, August 12.

Plants currently inside:

1. Angraecum germinyanum (64-75 day, 57-64 night)
2. Angraecum rutenbergianum (73-77 day, 55-57 night)
3. Amesiella monticola (73-77 day, 55-60 night)
4. Brassia pozoi (52-80)
5. Dracula vampira (53-80)
6. Trichopilia fragrans (55-76)
7. Epidendrum medusae (53-68)
8. Dendrobium subuliferum (56-80)

They’re still acclimating, no major signs of growth. It has been five days. Not very happy with how the fridge was delivered; it came with several external dents and a problem with the hinge. I recommend you pick up a fridge in person if you have a car.

I’m using a 16' Finnex Planted+ ALC light inside. The fridge is hooked up to a Pymeter temperature controller to keep the daytime temps between 73 and 75 degrees F. At night, the Insignia 29-bottle wine cooler keeps it around 56-58 degrees.

I noticed that during the cooling cycles, a lot of water evaporates and the humidity will plummet from 99% to 75%. I do need to water the plants daily or so to account for this. It may work better to have a humidity tray on the first level, but I haven’t felt the need to install one.

I wonder if this was an excessive purchase, now that the weather has cooled down. It’s possible that all the plants inside would’ve been okay with the heat in the end, who knows… But I like having the feeling of security. And it is giving me an excuse to acquire more plants that I wouldn’t otherwise have considered—mainly some masdevallias (prodigiosa, sancta-inesae, strobelli). I haven’t gotten a taste for the tinier pleurothallids yet.

I’m also hoping to buy some cool-growing dendrobiums soon, larger ones like the victoriae-reginae, and the smaller mohlianum.

8/18

Bad news…

The Epidendrum roots are weak. I should’ve inspected them earlier and not allowed the sphagnum moss to cover them so much. I had an intuition that the roots were bad anyway, and that I’ve been waiting for a new root to pop out of the base of each plant. Wouldn’t be surprised if one or both perished. I’ve moved them to lower light.

The two new growths on the Dracula were floppy and browning so I cut them off. I was very sad. And then I dug around and found a new growth, too small to be visible from above. It looks strong, I’m excited for it!

8/28

I moved the Angraecums and Amesiella and Dendrobium all back to the terrarium; there was cold damage on the two Angraecums. The other plants look fine, as if frozen in time. No clear signs of growth or decay, especially with the Epidendrum, which seems to go unchanged. I hope this means that it’ll put out a root soon, and not defoliate.

9/13

• Noticing new root tips at the base of Trichopilia pseudobulbs. Made a mistake of having the plant too close to the cooling panel at the back, so one of the leaves was in contact with ice and got black rot. I cut off that portion of the leaf today.
• Epidendrum medusae are not dead, no signs of decline, no signs of growth.
• Dracula vampira roots and growths look about the same. After I cut off the ones that had rotted, some new growths began adjacent to them; these are still intact. I checked on the roots and saw a lot of papery dead stuff, probably because the medium was a little too dry for too long. I’m trying to get more root growth at this point, not concerned about rotting what’s there.
• Brassia pozoi is fine, no real signs of growth or decline. I’m going to take it out and put it in a sunnier spot.
• Dendrobium mohlianum was added
• Dendrobium victoriae-reginae was added
• Masdevallia prodigiosa was added
• Masdevallia sanctae-inesae was added

9/17

I noticed white mycelium around Masdevallia sanctae-inesae, which then proceded to drop half of its leaves. The roots don’t look bad though; I dunked them in hydrogen peroxide and a lot of foaming occurred. Then I put it in a smaller pot with a little bit of bark at the base, though I’d prefer to mount it eventually. The other plants look fine. I’ve decided to lower the daytime temperatures to a 72 degree maximum, in case this helps the Masdevallias out.

According to Travaldo’s blog,

• Den. mohlianum and Den. victoriae-reginae should be kept at a 71 degree maximum but can tolerate warmer temperatures.
• Masd. sanctae-inesae and Masd. prodigiosa can tolerate up to 77 degrees, though the optimum range is up to 68 degrees.