We have even donated a couple of plants to the TOS raffle lately- the BLC Tangerine, and we had a Phal Baldans Kaleidoscope. We will probably donate a couple of others once they come into flower.
We have done what seems like a ton of repotting this spring. A lot of plants were growing out of their pots. We put everything into clay pots. I like them because they are a bit cooler for the summer and they are heavy enough that they normally don't fall over. The only interesting thing we did was to take the Ascocentrum ampullaceum out of the basket and put it in a little terrarium. We put some loose coconut husk fiber in the bottom and hung the plant near to the top. Now we mist it every day and pour out extra water from the bottom every few days. We hung the whole setup outside in the greenhouse. Not sure if it will work yet, but we shall see.
We have a lot of things flowering right now which is lovely!
The Sacoila lanceolata is all opened up. We brought it to the Orchid Society meeting on Monday and everyone thought it was really cool. We won second prize for the show table.
The other exciting thing is that the Spathoglottis plicata is flowering this year! It didn't make a single flower last summer. I guess it was just not happy. It has several flowering spikes now and looks great. More have popped open since this photo.
The little Dendrobium wassellii that Paul gave us a piece of last year has bloomed for us already! There are maybe 5-6 pseudobulbs. This plant grows on rocks, so it can handle hot and dry. We have it in a clay pot with normal bark mix but it is not packed in at all. I just poured some mix in with it. The new pseudobulb is growing on the pot not in the mix. Steven wants to have it mounted on a rock because that would be pretty cool. I can't wait for this thing to get big. It's going to look awesome.
The red Epidendrum is flowering really well too. This is the first time it hasn't had something unfortunate happen to the flowers in 2 years. One year they got knocked off during our move, and I can't remember what happened the next year. Maybe the cat ate it. I'm not sure what hybrid this is, but it is quite small and tidy which I really like! There are more flowers on it now, but it is just so red!
It is Oncidium time of year. They are all either flowering or in spike. Oncidium Gower Ramsey had two flower spikes. Unfortunately the cat ate one of them, but we still have the other looking beautiful. Sharry Baby is flowering- cat ate one of those too :( . Gold Medal has a well developed spike. It shouldn't be long before those buds pop open. AND the Miltassia Shelob Tolkein has two spikes full of buds that should open in the next few weeks.
Other very exciting- possibly the most exciting is that the Psychopsis Mendenhall Hlidos has a flower spike!!!! We have been totally paranoid that we would kill this thing since we got it because we killed the first one we had. We wait until it's very dry to water it and are really fussy about not getting water in any leaf bases without drying it off. We repotted it this spring which was a bit terrifying. It needed it and it was making new roots so it was the right time of year, but it has a spike. We are still holding our breathe that nothing bad will happen. It seems to be sending new roots into the medium so that is a good sign at least. The spike is quite tall already, but that is how they are- long spikes with sequential flowers.
