You have a warm growing Dendrobium. As for the name it is either
Den. Burana Green 'Star' or more likely Den. Burana Greenstar. Needs warmth, moderate humidity and good light throughout the year to do well.
You should be able to find lots of complete cultivation notes via google.

Poor Alexa - first hosta, then daylilies and now your first orchid. You are a true plantaholic. Let me be the first to congratulate you on another obsession in the making. Enjoy your blooms, they will be gorgeous and last a long time.

What potting mix is it in? Give it lots of morning light, let it dry out between waterings and give it a good thorough watering when you do. Low nitrogen fert on a den.

Brooke

ROFL Brooke!

Yep - you caught me! There really is no hope for me at all. LOLOL!

I have always admired orchids, but I had heard they are really finicky and hard to keep happy so the thought of laying out big $$$ on something I would likely kill did worry me. I finally bit on this one at my local grocery (insert eye roll here) since it is so healthy looking and it wasn't expensive. It is potted in what looks like a mixture of peat and wood chunks, but I don't want to dig too far and mess up the roots.

Besides, I need something to keep me interested between the holidays and when the first hosta and daylily seeds start to germinate! LOLOLOL!

THanks for the encouragement and the info - I will certainly keep reading and post photos when it is blooming.

Alexa

Nothing wrong with a grocery store orchid to start. It is like "making it in New York". If you can grow a grocery store orchid, you can grow any orchid. And if you kill it, then it was trash to begin with. No way to lose.

What makes orchids a challenge is not that they are orchids, it is because they come from all over the world. It is the available growing conditions. For example I have only a small area of my back yard that has enough sun to grow tomatoes. I can't grow (or spell) hybiscus at all.

As richardol says - ain't nothin' wrong with a grocery store orchid! My first orchid was a door prize at a daylily club meeting. When it finished blooming I almost threw it away because they are "hard" to grow. I didn't, it rebloomed the next year so I started rescuing orchids from the grocery - heck, I wasn't going to pay more than $5 for an orchid. Thus, the addiction began.

You will enjoy this forum - there are no strong personalities here that dominate or cause friction. It is a restful place with considerate posters, lots of ideas if a problem arises and many great answers.

richardol there is no reason to learn to spell hibiscus if you can't grow one - why take up memory cell space when you can use it for orchid knowledge.

Brooke

There are still a few days to go before it blooms, but I wanted to share a photo of it. I am encouraged that there are 2 spikes, but they are both coming from the same section of the one plant. The other isn;t showing any sign of blooming yet.

Thanks again for all the kind words!

{{gwi:183661}}

While the buds are opening it needs growing level light, that is light bright enough to cast a shadow but short of direct sunlight. A white sheer works well for that. Otherwise, bud blast (the buds stop growing and fall off) can occur.

After the flowers are open, it can be moved anywhere for a better display.

Thanks Richard.

Would it be better outside in morning sun and dappled shade the rest of the day? Or in a shady "sun room" with only a bit of morning sun and diffused light the rest of the day?

It is going to be in the mid-90s for the next several days (UGH!) but there is a nice breeze on my shady patio and it would get morning sun until about 9:30 AM.

Thanks so much for the advice, I really appreciate it!

Alexa

I found this post while researching my Den Burana Green Star and I hope someone can help. It has been doing fine all spring and summer. It also put off new growth during that time. However, I've had it wintering (resting) in a cold back room with my other orchids (night temps shouldn't get below low 50s in the room) now all the leaves on the old growth are very quickly turning yellow. The new growth appears fine. I didn't realize it was a warm temp orchid until I found this post- now I've moved it into living space that is heated. Is there any chance that this is a deciduous den? I'm guessing the leaves won't go back to green but what are the chances that the old growth will grow new leaves? This one doesn't look like a cane den. I did have a cane den that turned yellow last month and I tossed it. The canes shriveled a little and got a little soft so I figured it wasn't just dropping leaves. How can you tell if dens are dropping their leaves because of the wintering process or if they are just cold wet and miserable? I've cut way back on all of my watering during the winter but I don't let any of my orchids stay dry for more than a week to 10 days before I'm watering them again. (of course the phals, a zygopetalum and a few others don't get to dry out at all.) Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

It is not a deciduous Dendrobium and it needs warm conditions all year to do well. Depending on what species were used way back in the breeding,you should have a growing lead and say 4 or 5 fully leafed canes/pseudobulbs and then some bare canes on a mature plant. Sorry, do not have Wildcat so i cannot say which species were used, But my plant of Dendrobium phalaenopsis has a lot of leafed pseudobulbs while some plants of Den. bigibbum have fewer fully leafed growths. There are many other possible ancestors.

I like these orchids but really only have success with the ones that bloom in summer or early autumn.

They do tend to lose some leaves in Autumn as the weather cools down and initiates flowering on many. But the leaves should only go yellow and drop off the growth, say 4 or 5 from the lead.

You will need strong light and a lift in the day temperature during winter to have success. Mine are all outside in a glasshouse where i know they would be better if i wasn't a miser with the heating.

Haven't tried them on the windowsills with my Phals because they are space hogs. Think the name of your orchid is probably Den. Burana Greenstar.

Hopefully someone will have this particular hybrid and will give you some fine tuning.

Thanks for the info arthurm. My label has green star as two different words but who knows for sure. It didn't have any psb's that weren't with leaves. Now that it's dropping leaves I will have three psb's without leaves and the new growth with leaves. The psb's are still firm and smooth on all 4 so I hope everything turns out OK.