Updates

The bud on the Phrag kovachii x schlimii died. It was all brown and dried out inside. I don't know what exactly went wrong. Maybe not consistent enough water? We had been watering every day, but over Christmas that didn't always happen. Maybe it will try again soon.

Our Cattleya aurantiaca is flowering to beat the band. It make 4 new growths this year rather than just two so they all made a spike with several flowers. It went to the orchid show in South Carolina and won 1st prize for Medium sized species cattleyas!! That was pretty cool. We need to repot this when spring comes. It is getting to big for its britches.

The Catasetum is growing like a weed. We repotted it so the roots would be in the medium. This winter we are trying to be better about giving it enough water and light unlike last year. Last years pseudobulbs was smaller than previous years because we didn't give enough water and light while it was doing most of it's growth. This year we are trying to do better.

Leptotes bicolor has also FINALLY flowered for us!!! We have been waiting for what feels like forever- 2 years I think? It has made quite a few flowers too. I'm not sure what has been different this year. Is it just bigger now? We tried to give it more light over the summer- maybe that helped? We were also trying to water it more. We repotted it last year from a teeny tiny pot- maybe it needed a year to get a good enough root system to flower. It is adorable.

Dendrobium aggregatum also did it this year!!! Last year we didn't dry it out properly so it didn't get the rest it needed to flower. We kept it at home from the greenhouse this winter to make sure we could keep it dry enough and that worked! The flowers just opened up yesterday. I was hoping it would make more than 1 spike or a bigger spike since it is much bigger than last time it flowered, but it didn't. I think we kept it TOO dry during it's rest. It got pretty shriveled up. Next year we will try to keep it slightly damper. It is really hard to keep it dry but not too dry.