Comings and Goings

We have had a lot of new plants and given away a lot of plants because we needed to make space! We have had several plants we were always intending to give away once they were big enough or once they came into flower. We ran out space though so some of them went away a little sooner!

Goings:

We gave away the Sharry baby

2 extra Gus orchids

small division of Dendrobium spectabile

unknown cattleya

2 Potnarias that we had potted together in a basket

an extra Dendrobium kingianum

Charlie Brown because it was failing to thrive with us

Seems like there were a couple of other things too, but I can't remember what they were.

New plants:

• Arpophyllum spicatum- which we repotted and has a sheath already- very exciting!
• Cattleya boweringiana that had buds already when we bought it, popped out within a week or so with tons of beautiful flowers.

• Dendrobium thyrsifolium
• LC. Santa Barbara Sunset "Showtime" has a nice big spike on it that is still coming along
• Bulbophyllum careyanum
• a large Dendrobium kingianum. We are leaving it basically outside to get very cold in hopes that it will flower for us in the spring!
• massive Zygopetalum maculatum- we put it in a 14in clay pot. It's huge!
• Dendrobium nobile which isn't in the best shape so we are going to grow it over the winter rather than rest it so it will be stronger for next year. 
• sad little Dendrobium loddigesii which we will also grow this winter to strengthen it rather than resting.
• mystery Dendrochilum. We repotted it this summer and it has gone insane with new growths. It was a good sized plant to begin with but it now has at least 20 new growths and they all seem to have flower spikes in them. We are excited to see what it looks like. Hopefully we will be able to find out what it is.

• Paphiopedilum hirsutissimum var. esquirolei. We decided to give a Paph another try. They were a good deal at the Growers Day event so we got one to try. Of course we left it in reach of bad kitty and it got nibbled. It doesn't seem to have hurt it too much- just made it a bit ugly looking. So far so good. We'll see how long we can keep it alive. I would really like to grow Paphs well. There are some that I really really like. I think the ones I really like though are the harder to grow ones....unfortunate really.

Exciting flowers this summer/fall

Probably the most exciting flower we had was the Psychosis. We have been (and still are) so paranoid about killing it that we were thrilled that it flowered. It's sequential, but not all of the flowers came to be. It made about 3 flowers and a couple that didn't work before it stopped. It was hard to keep mealy bugs out of there with them living outside.

The new growth it was making rotted off. It cannot have ANY water or dampness of any kind get down in there or anywhere near it. We weren't careful enough. We are hoping it will make another one. 

Phragmipedium bessae hybrid

We have be told it is likely a Saint Peter, but of course there's not really any way to know for sure. It looked amazing this year with 3 flower spikes!!! Of course all 3 flowers never looked good at the same time or were even ever all open at the same time, but it was still exciting. We were hoping it would still have 3 for the show next week, but there seems to be only one spike left with any oomph left in it. Might still put it in the show, but not as good. It didn't flower last year because we repotted too late, and it didn't care for that. It made up for it this year though!

The Zygopetalum Jumping Jack also flowered for the first time since we bought it!! It was a flowering division of a large plant, so it needed some time to grow before it could flower again. I think the black spots that get all over the leaves are from it being too hot. Zygopetalums are cool growers, and we just don't really have much in the way of cool here in the summer. I took it to the office for a while so it could be air conditioned safe from the kitties. 

The Bird Cage

Last winter we realized one of our cats has a taste for orchids. He ate several things. So this winter, the plants we keep at home have some heavy duty protection.

This is our new plant enclosure. It's a bout 7ft tall...We got it at the state surplus warehouse and painted it. It has slide out trays that go under each rack to catch water. It's kind of perfect. We're going to add lights to the setup as well. That window gets really good light, but in the winter it's not really enough for all the plants. Things with really tall spikes don't fit in there like the Phrags, but everything else fits well. It looks kind of crazy but we are excited about it!