The plants are all looking really good. I wanted to give the latest update on what's happening with all of them. Quite a few things are getting ready to flower. It is that time of year.
The Love Orchid is flowering. These are bad pictures I know. This is not it's most impressive display ever, but it didn't have ideal conditions with light and us forgetting to water a lot over the winter.
Maxillaria tenuifolia is finally flowering!!! It definitely smells like coconut. It only has three flowers, but maybe at least it did it. I think it likes more light than we were giving it before. I'm not really sure what else it would prefer to flower better. My method is usually bloom booster! haha.
Miltassia has two flowering spikes again this year! I am going to water it more often this year because last year several of the buds blasted. My theory is that it needed more water while it was trying to flower. Many of the plants are like that, but I just get into the habit of letting them dry out, and can't seem to get out of it at flower time. The flowering spikes seem to be growing rapidly too. I swear this one is a couple inches longer since I took this picture a couple of days ago.
Encyclia tampensis also has two spikes! We are super stoked about this one. We just don't seem to be able to make a happy looking plant out of this one. It always seems to look a bit sad- too dry or something.
Enyclia Cindy also has a flowering spike on it's honking huge growth that it made in the greenhouse over the winter. I like this plant. It is not too picky. And the flowers smell good.
The octoporchid is going to town again flowering. This year it is making a vertical flowering spike. The last two years we've had it flowering it made drooping spikes. I think it might be that it likes the higher light it was getting at the greenhouse. The air movement there is also fairly strong. Probably a combo. We will try to keep it at higher light levels since it seemed to like it just fine. We are also planning to repot this plant this year because the moss is old and yucky.
Sharry Baby is putting on two flowering spikes. One will be popping out really soon and the other a little further behind. It just can't help itself. It puts on a spike before the pseudobulb it's coming from is even mature yet. This is definitely a reliable plant.
The red Epi got repotted a month or two ago and one of the kikis is flowering already. This is the buds. I have started bloom boosting it to see if we can get some more flowers! Last year we only got two flowers from this plant because the spike got busted when we moved the first time and then busted again!
We only got 2 flowers again. It just didn't make any more buds. Probably because it was a small growth and had just been repotted. It was lovely though.
The yellow and maroon cattleya is also blooming although the flower is a little mangled because it seems to have been stuck underneath the leaves. Still lovely though! It has a couple of other flower sheaths, so we will see what that brings us.
Ascocentrum ampullaceum is starting a flower spike too. I am praying it does well this year. Last year it made two flower spikes but the tip of the spikes died from the heat/dryness I think. So we only got a couple of flowers. I have been misting it every day. It has more moss and stuff in the basket with it now because it wasn't getting daily water at the greenhouse over the winter. I have left that in there for now to keep up the humidity. I've been using bloom booster on it every day too. I am determined that it will bloom well this year.
Sacolia lanceolata has three flower spikes. Only one is big though. It is way behind where it was last year (all the plants are behind really) because of the weather and different climate. It seems like it will do well. I want to leave it outside more in the fall to get as much sun as possible.
Catasetum is doing alright I think. It is growing. I nitrogen boosted it with the others. I think I wasn't watering it enough because it was making a somewhat wrinkled leaf. It still has all summer though we we'll see if it picks up the pace. It seems to be doing well from the repotting. The new roots have gone down into the medium.
Phragmipedium bessae hybrid is growing great. It has browning of the leaf tips most likely from not enough water all the time. We have been watering it more and keeping the water dish for it full. I think once I cut the brown off that it will be fine going forward. The new growths look really happy and they made nice new roots.
Spathoglottis got repotted after I seriously over sunned it. I thought I put it in a shady place because it's shady before and after work, but then I realized it was getting quite a bit of sun during mid-day. It got sad. We put it in a much larger 3 gallon pot. I'm not sure the dirt we used it very good though. We might have to redo it. We are now keeping it on the porch where it is mostly in the dark just like it prefers. I also am fertilizing it to get it going.
