I bought this plant from lowes less than a week ago and it has jettisonned 3 branches already. Do they go thru some sort of shock or is it me.
May have been mishandled at some point between the grower and you, exposed to cold for instance. If the soil gets dust dry they may also start to fall apart. Are you watering it? These are cloud forest epiphytes in nature, not desert plants.
I just watered it even though the soil is moist. I was a little rough getting it into a hanger, but I didn't break them then. It's been cool by tampa standards, maybe upper 50s lower 60s at night.
Other signs of distress would be discoloration, wrinkling, flaccidity, multiple flower buds dropping without opening.
You can plant the fallen-off branches as cuttings, they should root fairly easily. Let them dry off a few days so the base has a dry callus, otherwise it risks rotting on planting.
Don't stand it too close to a radiator. I did that last year, and it didn't like it at all. Then I moved it to my kitchen window, where it gets lots of light, heat and steam. It seems to have forgiven me, has doubled in size during the past year, and now has 78 buds! Only 5 have opened so far, but they already look fabulous. It's going to look magnificent in a couple of weeks! I have noticed, though, that most of the buds, and the biggest of them, are all on the shaded side,away from the window. The five open buds are also all away from the window. This seems strange. Can anyone shed -- ahem -- some *light* on the subject?
Living in tampa, FL., not much worry about radiators. I have it hanging in the porch, plenty of indirect light. All the clippings are doing well, they are even flowering, not much root development yet. These plants are very sensetive, even bumping them causes damage.
