Another dud plant

We got this cirrhopetalum as well from the orchid club meeting like the stupid Brassias. Someone was giving away bare roots pieces of a bulbophyllum which I can't remember. We planted it right away on a 4" flat basket with sphagnum like we do most of our bulbophyllums. It seems to have a serious fungus problem. There were some black marks on it, but they are really bad now. I sprayed it with the copper stuff but that doesn't seem to have helped. We are going to pitch it. I want to save the flat basket though because it's new. We will bake it in the sun to get rid of any cooties. It is also not making any new growths right now. If it were growing I might be less inclined to pitch it.

Psychopsis is making new growths and I'm nervous

The psychosis is making two new growths, and I'm really nervous about it. We have killed one of these plants before because water got down in the new growth and caused rot. The tricky thing is that the growth can be fully mature before it rots, which I don't really understand. I have been super careful about water it. I've mostly been trying to water it just by soaking it instead of watering it from the top. I wait a long time between waterings because it's planted in coconut husk which holds a lot of water. We've sliced holes in the plastic of the pot to allow for more airflow since it's not hot like a greenhouse with us. I am hopeful that everything will go well!

Dendrobium kingianum

Also at the last orchid club meeting someone was giving away kikis from Dendrobium kingianum, so we took one and potted it up. They are supposedly easy to grow. My research found that they want to dry out between waterings and they can take a lot of sun. They can also handle a really wide temperature range from freezing to upper 90s.

We planted it in a  little 4" clay pot with bark and pebbles mix. We'll see how it does! Everyone speaks highly of them.

BL: Yellow Birds

We won something at the raffle they have every month at the orchid club meeting. We chose the Yellow Birds because I really like them. It's in a 8" basket with bark mix, although there's not much mix left. It doesn't seem to mind though. We're trying to give it as much sun as we can in the house and water when it gets dry. We will probably try to add some more medium to the basket, but other than that just let it be. They seem to be pretty easy based on friends that have them and our experience with Brassavola nodosa (one of the parents).

It did have more flowers, but they have since fallen off. I'm not sure why it has so much red pigment to the flowers and some of the leaves too. I'm assuming it's because it was getting a lot of sun before we got it. I wonder if this one wants less sun than Brassavola nodosa which wants tons of sun. 

Repotting is upon us. Round 1

We have begun our spring repotting. It didn't seem like we had that many things that needed repotting at first, but then we acquired a few new things that needed it. We spent forever at the place trying to pick out the right pots etc. to put things in. I have been trying to be good about fertilizing, but we are just not up and running properly for fertilizing easily. It's been a struggle just to keep everything watered properly.

Sheryl kurizaki- a tiny bulbophyllum got repotted into a 4 inch wide 1 inch tall plastic basket in sphagnum. So far it looks happy. It had just run out of room in the old setup.

Dendrobium aggregatum also got repotted into a larger plastic basket- 6 inches instead of 4 inch. We planted it in all moss since when it is getting watered it doesn't care how wet it is. It also got a yellow leaf with black spots. I cut off the suspect leaf and sprayed the whole thing with copper spray (like I said spraying is my new thing). There are still a couple of little black spots on a couple of leaves but they aren't expanding, so we are keeping an eye on it. I forgot to take a picture of it. We were able to repot it early because it didn't flower this spring.

The red epi went nuts making kikis at the greenhouse. We waited until it had nice long roots and repotted it all. We put all the kikis and the original plant into a much bigger pot. It was in a 3" plastic pot and now it's in a 6" clay orchid pot. We're using regular bark mix. So far so good. This is the only Epi we really have left.

Leptotes bicolor got repotted into a 4 inch basket with sphagnum moss. We were going to put it into a larger pot, but the guy at the greenhouse said they prefer baskets. I'm hoping it will flower this year. It didn't last year, and I know it is plenty big enough. I might have to look into what it wants a bit more. We were told to treat it like a cattleya. It might be drying out more than it really wants to. Probably the new potting situation will help with that.

Catasetum is growing really well. We repotted it into a bigger 6" plastic pot in sphagnum moss. I have been watering and fertilizing it. The growth is probably about 8" tall. There are a lot of roots but they seem to prefer growing sideways rather than down, so they are all sort of bunched up at the top. I'm hoping now that they have medium around them they will grow down. I would like to be fertilizing it more. I wanted it in a plastic pot again because I like to be able to easily pull the whole root mass/plant out and look at it over the winter when it's drying out. Then I can spritz the roots to keep them from totally desiccating. We repotted it because there wasn't enough room in the old pot for the new growth. Also the medium was kind of hard at the top and I thought it would be hard for the new roots to get down in there and establish. So far so good. I keep being afraid this plant is doing right, but it has been ok so far.

I've been having a hell of a time getting it to grow straight. I have to rotate it regularly. It wants to be outside where the light it up instead of sideways.


The pink Dendrobium we were given by someone in the orchid club also got repotted. It had been planted in rocks in a shallow 6" clay orchid pot. Much of the plant was growing over the edge of the pot. We repotted it into the same pot with a bark mix instead. Hopefully that will help it feel happier about how much water it's getting. I think this plant is the phalaenopsis type dendrobiums that come from Home Depot etc. We learned at the Orchid Show in Asheville this past weekend that these want tons of sun, hot temps, and regular watering. We will try to provide that, but don't know if we can. The lady said it always tries to flower in the winter and blasts the buds- probably from cool temps or too dry. Maybe if we can get it to try and flower in the summer we can get some flowers out of it. It's not growing right now. I want to keep an eye on that.

We still have plenty more repotting to do. We are thinking of picking up the plants from the greenhouse in shifts and taking the finished ones back in shifts so we don't end up with too many at home. We will still keep some at home, especially those that were are treating from fungus etc.

Mystery Phals

Steven picked up three phals for only $5 each at Atlantic Nursery because their flower spikes had broken off or something. One of them is Baldans kaleidoscope and we have no idea what the other two are. At least two of them as starting to make flower spikes so we will find out in a couple of months. I think it will be fun to have extra phals around so I can bring them to work or lend them to people while they are flowering. Although, Steven and I might want to keep them to ourselves....We'll see. Steven repotted two of them into 6 inch clay pots in sphagnum, and left the third in its plastic pot with sphagnum for now. 

Plus we have the mystery Phal we got at the orchid meeting in December. I didn't take any pictures of these because they just look like phals.

Masdevallia veitchiana for my birthday!

Steven gave me a Masdevalia veitchiana for my birthday this year. I have been hankering after a Masdevalia for two years now, since I saw red ones at the Redland Show.

I've added pretty much all the pictures I have of it because it is so pretty. The pinkish color is little magenta pink hairs that are on the orangey flower. I couldn't really get photos of the hairs. It has two flowers right now and another spike that is growing.

It's planted in a 4 inch plastic pot with bark mix. It looks really healthy for the most part. We had to cut one leaf off, that was turning yellow from the tip. I also sprayed it with copper fungicide. I think spray everything might be my new motto. Nothing else has looked suspicious since then. I haven't researched it extensively yet. My understanding is that it is from higher elevations so it can't take the heat. It wants medium to low sun-not much more than Phals and Paphs. It doesn't want to completely dry out- especially not if it is hot. I think it will be too hot here for it sometimes in the summer- especially in our little greenhouse. We might have to keep it in the house in the air conditioning. I read they prefer 75-80 daytime and 55-60 at night.