ANOS Sydney June 2019 Plant of the evening

Dendrobium Awesome

It is a large plant carrying 4 long inflorescences, two of which were over 0.5 m long carrying over 20 flowers plus buds. The mature flowers were of excellent shape, large (7x5 cm) and had very attractive colours. The tepals were dark pink with yellow margins and centres, nicely balanced by a purplish labellum. The plant benched on the night was a couple of weeks from its prime flowering with only less than half of its flowers fully open even on the most advanced inflorescence. However, one can imagine what an impression it can make when at its best with all the widely open flowers looking at you along the long arching inflorescences.

Dendrobium Awesome was registered in 1995 by Neil Finch and is a hybrid between Dendrobium Lustrous and Dendrobium speciosum. Hence this hybrid has Dendrobium speciosum, Dendrobium fleckeri, Dendrobium tetragonom and Dendrobium bigibbum in its parentage. According to Neil, over the years, he has repeated the cross using three clones of Dendrobium Lustrous (a yellow and a red one of his and a purple one from Ken Russell) and three different varieties of Dendrobium speciosum (Dendrobium speciosum var. speciosum ‘Windermere’, Dendrobium speciosum var. pedunculatum ‘Herberton’ and Dendrobium speciosum var. curvicaule ‘Day Light Moon’) as parents. This explains the existence of a large number of different Dendrobium Awesome that we encounter in Shows and Monthly benching, varying in colour, size and shape of flowers as well as size of plants. Many clones of Dendrobium Awesome with very different colours ranging from pure yellow to full pink as well as a mixture of these colours have been produced.

David Hemmings grows his plant under 50% shade cloth during summer but under polycarbonate cover during the cooler months. A mixture of pine bark, charcoal and scoria is used as growth medium. According to Neil, it is best to use an open mix, hang the plant up and important not to overwater. “Relies on rain and waters only when it needs a drink”.

Dendrobium Awesome has been awarded a few times in New Zealand and Australia. It has been used as a parent for further breeding, resulting in more recent hybrids like Dendrobium Eclipse (with Dendrobium speciosum) and Dendrobium Bergen (with Dendrobium Candice), just to name a few examples.

Acknowledgement: We thank Neil Finch for providing additional information for this article. Photo by Sau-wan Chan.