Additions and Subtractions

We've had a couple of additions and subtractions that I have forgotten to mention on the blog.

Additions:

Phal hybrid of unknown color. It was really cheap at the Orchid Society auction at Christmas time so we bought it. We thought it would be fun to be able to loan out Phals to friends, family, neighbors and bring them to work etc. But then we feel stingy with the plants after getting them to flower. This phal is planted sideways in a plastic pot with bark mix. It's healthy but not liking the sideways situation. The roots that have tried to grow on the up side have died off after just being nubs from being too dry. We are going to repot it into our standard 6in clay with sphagnum phal setup.

Another Brassia Rex hybrid. was also inexpensive and looked healthy from the auction.

Dendrobium (pink) from someone at the Orchid Society that was having trouble with it. The flowers kept blasting from too little humidity they thought. They gave it to us, since we keep ours at a greenhouse in the winter. I think it just needs more frequent water, and repotting since it's planted in rocks.


Subtractions:

that new brassia got a fungus or something and we threw it out. I went to the greenhouse one day and it just looked terrible. I brought it home and treated it once with the copper spray, but it just looked so awful and we didn't want any of the other plants to get sick. Won't be buying a brassia again for a good long while if ever. They seem to be cursed for us.

Phaph St. Swithin kicked it too. I was excited because it was growing and looking good, but then one day I picked it up and the growth was flopping. The whole growth popped right off. When we dumped out the pot it, of course, had no roots. It seemed like it was really compacted inside the pot, so that is probably what went wrong. It was disappointing because it had started looking like it was really growing, and then it was dead. I'm not sure how it managed that with such bad roots. We decided not to try and rehab it because it was going to be 10 years probably before it would flower anyways. If we want one that bad, we'll buy one and pay more for a decent sized plant.

Grammatophyllum scriptum- the mini grammatophyllum also got a fungus or something and we threw it out. That was also disappointing. It was a cool little plant. Oh well I guess. We are just not in a situation to be rehabbing almost dead plants right now.

All this leaves room for buying something at the Greensboro show this weekend!! We also need to buy a lot of potting materials there. We have a lot of repotting to do. This will also be the first time we're getting around to a plant having been in the same pot for two years. Hard to believe we have only really been orchiding for that long. We also kind of have a repotting compulsion....