Tuesday, July 1, 2014

New Addition, Greenhouse, and Repotting

New Additions
We have a couple of new additions. One is called Potnaria Frank Gilmore "Mendenhall" x BLC. George King "Serendipity". I think it is orangey peachy colored looking it up online, which is exciting because I've been hankering after a cattleya of that color. We got it from the potting party for the orchid club. The Club has a bench at the Orchid Trail with donated plants. They use the donated plants for raffle prizes, and many were in serious need of repotting. We made 7 divisions of that cattleya and were allowed to take one home!! It is planted in a 5" clay orchid pot with standard bark mix. We used dry bark for potting this time instead of wet bark. We decided to try that as an experiment to see if they root better. We didn't water for an entire week. We normally would wait 2 weeks, but it is just so hot in the greenhouse that we didn't want to risk it. It is already starting to make new roots from the new growths which is great!!

The other new addition is Dendrobium "Banana Royal". Someone at the Orchid Trail was repotting their's and gave us the old back bulbs. We potted it in a little 2-4" pot with bark mix. We will see if anything happens. It has yellow flowers. I really like some of our Dendrobiums, but I'm not feeling fully committed to them being awesome in general like I do for some of the genera. Like Bulbophyllums: They all look cool and interesting.

Greenhouse
We have two box fans going in the greenhouse right now, which seems to be helping keep the temperature down and the plants from looking sad. I think the tons of air movement is making them be okay with the high temps. It has gotten up to 106 degrees in there even with one fan on. In order to try and reduce the temperature we also got some gravel on craigslist for the floor. We pulled up most of the cardboard we had on the floor, except for one layer, and covered that with gravel. My theory is that the rocks are naturally cooler than cardboard and will help wick the cool from the dirt underneath  up into the greenhouse. We can also water the rocks when it's going to be hot for evaporative cooling. It seems like it might be working so far, but it's hard to tell. 

Repotting
I repotted the Love Orchid. It still has a couple of flowers on it, but they are coming to a close. I was reporting Phals from work and had been planning to do the Love Orchid too. I just wanted to see what was going on inside it's pot. It hadn't been repotted for at least a year and I wanted to make sure the moss was still ok in there. I think the moss was actually still ok for a while longer yet. Since I had already pulled it out, Steven thought I might as well just go ahead and give it new moss. He said the moss smelled fungusy. So it's potted back in to it's same pot with new moss. It hasn't dropped it's flowers yet either. 

We repotted the Phragmipedium bessae hybrid a couple weekends ago. We wanted to put it in a clay pot, so it's root zone would be cooler. We got this idea from a talk we heard at the orchid club meeting. So we redid it in new bark in a 6" clay pot. We put moss on top  to make sure any new roots had something to grow into. The leaf tips are still browning which I still don't understand. Maybe it's a water quality problem? Maybe we need to test our water. We water the Phrags every day to make sure they are staying wet enough. Phrag bessae also still sits in a water dish. It hasn't shown much in the way of distress from being repotted. I hope it stays that way. 

BLC. Irene Finney got repotted too. It was in a tiny plastic pot with lava rock that was falling over all the time. It now has a 6" clay orchid pot with standard bark mix. It seems to be doing just fine, making new roots etc. I don't think it's big enough to flower yet. It's a slow grower with the big leaves. Some of our cattleyas just seem to be really slow moving.

I also need to repot the Octoporchid and haven't had a chance yet. It is still flowering, but starting to make a new growth, and that new growth will not fit in it's old basket. Plus the moss is old and probably really nasty.

More Flowers Have Opened

Miltassia
Miltassia Shelob "Tolkein"has also opened up its flowers perfectly. None of the buds blasted like they did last year. The flowers are also lasting really well. They are all even right side up except for one of them. They have already been on for a couple of weeks. I find it interesting how it seems to grow in the winter time. A lot of the plants grow in the summer, but this one seems to mostly grow in the winter. We'll see what it does this year.




Fred Orchids
Both of the Fred Orchids are going to flower. Gower Ramsey has a giant 4ft tall spike. It doesn't have a crazy amount of flowers, just a giant spike. I need to look up what causes huge long spikes like that.    I wonder if it is a fertilizer or a light thing... Gold Medal is also starting to make a spike. Gold Medal is not very big, so I am impressed with it's ability to make a flower spike so small. I call it my "indicator plant" because the pseudobulbs very obviously start to shrivel when it wants water then plump back up again when it's happy. It seems to be the only plant that really does that. Most of them don't plump back up.





Encyclia Cindy 
Encyclia Cindy is flowering too! It made a really nice spike this year with quite a few flowers. It made a giant fat pseudobulb at the greenhouse over the winter. It is working on making another growth, but it is sort of on hiatus while it's been flowering. The flowers are starting to drop off, so the growth will probably start growing again soon! These flowers don't last terribly long. Just a couple of weeks rather than months like some of them.






Oncidium Sharry Baby
Oncidium Sharry Baby is also flowering. It made two spikes, but only really had one at a time. The first one's flowers seemed to fall off quickly. I think that's because it was really hot in the greenhouse during that time. The second spike seems to be lasting a while. This plant would like repotting too. The newest growths are not going to fit in the pot. 







Mystery Phalaenopsis
One of the mystery Phals also flowered. It has pink blotches. I don't think it's my favorite, but it's a fun one to bring to work or otherwise loan out. It also needs repotting, but I will do that once it finishes flowering.


Gus Orchid flowers have arrived

The Gus Orchid (Laelia Amoena coerulea x Laelia Nina Bonita "Barbara") has opened up two of it's sets of flowers. It is still working on a couple of more spikes/buds.  It has never flowered this well before. It was always a struggle to get it to make one or two flowers. I wish I knew what did the trick. Was it the greenhouse and extra light over the winter? Was it the higher nitrogen fertilizer I used for a month or so during May and early June? Was it the Superthrive I mixed in with that fertilizer? Is it the more frequent water? Is it just that the plant is larger? I have no idea, but it is apparently happy. I hope it will still be looking good for the meeting in a couple of weeks.