Anticipation of Flowers

We have several more plants we are waiting to open their flowers.

The big Gus Orchid is in bud all of a sudden. That sort of came out of nowhere. I hadn't even been bloom boosting it! That plant is fussy I've decided. The same exact plant at the orchid trail has way bigger pseudobulbs and is just much more robust. Ours is a good vegetative grower, but it's hard to get it to flower usually. I've decided that a lot of our plants- especially the cattleyas and anything else that wants to dry out has been getting too dry. We are watering more often now especially with the greenhouse so hot.

The Ondicium Gower Ramsey has a huge flowering spike that is at least 2ft tall and really strong! The buds are only just starting to form, so we have a little while on that one yet.


The Miltassia Shelob Tolkein is also budding still. They are growing bigger. We've been watering it more so the buds don't blast. That happened last year and we only got a couple of flowers.

One of the mystery Phals is about to pop open! It looks like it will be pink or purple. We will see in a couple of days and I will add more pictures.

Encyclia tampensis

Encyclia tampensis is flowering right now. It has 3 flower spikes! I think one of the spikes is even from one of the original plant parts that was so puny. There's only one bud on that spike. We brought it to the Orchid Society meeting yesterday and it didn't win any prizes but it looked cute. We were warned not to water it too much, but I think it has actually started looking better since we started watering it more. It doesn't have much medium in it's pot and it dries out fast. We are still letting it dry out between waterings, so I think it is safe. At least I hope so....

Phragmipediums

We have been watering all three of the phrags everyday because they like to have a lot of water, and it's hot in the greenhouse. 

The phrag bessae hybrid is also still sitting in it's water dish. I wrote last month that the leaf tips were browning, and that I cut them off. This happened in the past from not getting enough water. We are watering it plenty now, and the tips are browning again. This requires some investigating. My ideas are that either 

1. there's a root problem and it's not able to take in the water. 

2. It doesn't like the water quality of the city water/too much fertilizer

3. it's too hot

I want to get it figured out because it is making a flowering spike. The buds have turned brown before with the leaves, so I want to fix the problem before that happens! 

I want to unpot it and check on the medium to see if it's rotting, and therefore rotting my roots. I also don't want to repot it right now because it is trying to flower. It's a catch-22. I think we will unpot it and check the roots and hope it flowers again. I think we might be able to do it without mangling the roots too much. I think we will also plant it in a clay pot instead of plastic to keep the roots cooler. 

If it's a water quality problem that is more annoying. We have plans to set up rain barrels but haven't had the chance yet. 

If it's a heat problem we are working on that for the sake of all the babies.

Phrag longifolium and Phrag kovachii x schlimii are both looking really good. No leaf tip browning really for them. 

Kovachii seems to finally be picking up and looking happy. I think it wanted more regular watering. We also sprayed it to get rid of any cooties it had. Hopefully it will continue to do well! I have been fertilizing!

Some of the Babies got Cooked :(

We forgot to turn the fan on in the greenhouse one day and it got way too hot in there. A couple of the orchids that were on the top shelf got cooked.

Rhyncholaelia digbyana had a few leaves burn and turn black. We have since cut off the bad parts.

The seedling Dendrobium spectabile's newest growth cooked right where the leaves attach to the pseudobulb. I had to cut those leaves off so now it's just a pseudobulb stump. The older set of leaves is still okay though.

The psychopsis I think got the worst of it. The tips of most of it's leaves cooked. It also got a few spots on it, from water sitting I guess?

We have now put the fan on a timer so it comes on automatically. It still gets hotter than we want in the greenhouse. It gets about 103 degrees Fahrenheit as the max. We are going to switch out the cardboard floor for gravel/rocks because the ground underneath will I think wick the coolness up and lower the temperature. At least I hope that will work. We are also trying to figure out some kind of mister to put in front of the fan to lower the temperature. 

We are having to water more often because it gets so warm in there. That's okay though.