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!

Babies are home with quite a few flowers and lots of repotting

We brought all the orchids home from the greenhouse last weekend and got everything rearranged at home. I had to bring all the Phals to work because there's not much room at home! They do well at work so that is fine.

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.

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.

Flowers this Winter

The Gus orchid is flowering again. It just flowered this summer and is doing it again- this time all in a flush. It looks great. We were surprised it did it again so soon. We figured this plant would be a once a year.

Dendrobium spectabile has also gone ape shit this year. It has 5-6 spikes compared to the 2 from last year. They are still opening up, but we are super stoked about this. AND it will be good to take to the meeting. It didn't get to go to the meeting last year because it was cancelled due to weather. This year we can wow everyone!

Phragmipedium kovachii x schlimii has a spike and a bud!!! We were not expecting this and are really excited about it. It started doing it about a month after we brought everything inside for the winter. We think it might like the cooler temperatures. I am paranoid that it has stalled in the development though. The bud is really interesting looking because it's fuzzy. It seems to have enjoyed getting watered every day, although I don't think it cared for the heat of the summer. We are wishing really hard for the flower to really happen.

Phragmipedium longifolium is STILL flowering. It has made like 7 flowers since it started in August. It shows no signs of stopping. I still water it frequently, and it is just going to town. This plant can definitely go on the top performer list.

New Plants

We have gotten a few new plants in the last few months.

We got a Bulbophyllum frostii. The flowers look like little shoes!! It wasn't in flower when we got it, so we'll see if we can make it flower this summer.

From the Orchid Society fall auction we got a Laelia purpurata var. carnea and a Dendrobium Hibiki "Tiny Bubbles". We got the Laelia because I just really like the flowers and the plant is very well behaved. We got Tiny Bubbles because it is just so cute, and we have really enjoyed our Dendrobium bracteosum which is similar. Well, really we got it because Steven was trying to drive up the bidding price with another lady from the Orchid Society that was buying tons of plants...and then she backed out haha. We are happy we have it though. Tiny Bubbles is still flowering since September.

I convinced Steven to give me a BLC. George King "Serendipity" for Christmas. I have been hankering after one for a while now and I finally got it. Our bad kitties decided they really liked chewing on flowers though so the flowers fell off prematurely. That was really annoying. I just can't watch them all the time, and they can get just about everywhere I could think to put it, except back at the greenhouse, but then I can't enjoy it. So now I have to wait for that to flower again.

The Dearly Departed and other sadness

We have had a few things die lately or they were just sickly and we threw them away.

We got a big cattleya from the Orchid Society raffle that ended up flowering soon after we got it. The flower was red/maroon with a red lip. We didn't care for it. The flower also had some funny colorations on it that made us think it had virus. Once it was done flowering we threw it in the compost pile. The plant part looked reasonably healthy, so we felt bad pitching it, but a local expert said the virus will often first be noticeable in the flowers then spread to the leaves.

The Paphiopedilum bellatulum  also died. I think we watered it too much because most of the roots were dead. We tried to put it in rehab but it just got worse and worse. We finally just threw it out. That was really sad because we had been so excited about this plant. We specifically searched for and bought it because we think they look so cool. When we told Paul we had killed it, he said they are one of the harder ones to grow. Maybe we will try again sometime... Maybe we will practice on some easier paphs first.

One of the bunch of Phals we had gotten from a garden center just kept looking really bad, and we learned that it probably had leaf mites. We weren't that attached to it, so we pitched it.

The Masdevallia veitchiana  that Steven got me for my birthday died too. It seemed to be doing well until May. We put it briefly in the kitchen window, and I think we cooked it's poor roots because the kitchen gets a lot of sun, and it was getting warmer and we didn't realize. The leaves got all these sunken brown spots on them and were falling off one by one. We tried to rehab it with no success. It finally totally kicked it over the summer. I think it was just too hot for it with us. I really like masdevallia's because they are so lovely, but I don't know if they are the right plants for us :(

We nearly killed our Encyclia tampensis AGAIN. But I think we have put it in rehab in time. The roots were rotting- so I guess we were not letting it dry out enough. They are twig epiphytes in the wild so they dry quickly- however they also have a lot of humidity and dew fall during the dry season. We un-potted it and let it sit bare root for a couple weeks until it started to make new roots. We mounted it this time since we can't seem to stop over watering it. We will mist it every day or every other day and see how it does. So far the little baby roots are still there. I am feeling optimistic about it. It is so interesting how much things change seasonally. In the early summer we were watering it more frequently and it seemed to respond well to that, and it flowered nicely. I guess we didn't cut down on water properly- or got too over-excited with the watering as it came into the end of the summer, because that's when it started to look a little sad.

A couple of things were in bud but didn't end up flowering

Phragmipedium bessae hybrid had buds, but we repotted it because it was stressed from being too hot. So the buds ended up rotting. That was sad, but I don't feel so bad, because I am reasonably confident we can make it happen again.

Steve Stevenson had a bud too, but it rotted from getting water in it at the greenhouse a couple weeks ago. That is more upsetting because we have never seen it before. According to google images it isn't going to look like a favorite, so this way it will get to live with us for a while longer. We are trying to make a philosophy of giving away things we don't really like. However, those are also the things that we made flower!! Tricky trade-off.

Tangerine has finally flowered!!

BLC "Sweet Treat" (BLC "Pokai Tangerine" x Cattleya "Chocolate Drop") or Tangerine as I refer to it- has finally flowered after 3 years! It only made 1 flower because it is only it's first time flowering, but it was exciting nonetheless! We didn't really know what it would look like. I think most of what made it flower this year was just size and maturity. I also moved it partway through the summer to get a bit more light and it liked that. I also misted the roots that are all outside the basket daily or every other day.

We are excited that it bloomed finally, but to be honest we are not that excited about how it looks. We are thinking about contributing it for the raffle at the Orchid Society meeting. It's hard though because I have gotten kind of attached to it, taking care of it the last 3 years. There's also the fact that we can apparently have success with it, which is more than I can say for some of our plants. We know how to grow Cattleyas, Oncidiums and Phals, but don't have much luck with some of the other things- like Paphs and vandaceous things.

Cattleya cernua

Cattleya cernua flowered really well this year after skipping last year. We gave it more sun this year, and I think that is what did it, also a bit more water since there is not a lot of medium in it's basket. It flowered in the beginning of November this year rather than in September like it did last time. I am curious to see when it flowers in the future- will it be on a November or September time schedule.

It won a little prize at the Orchid Society meeting which was really fun.

I have not seen much of any root growth on all the new growths it has made, which worries me. I am hoping it will make roots while it is living at the greenhouse this winter since the humidity is good there.

July/August Flowering Update

We have had a fair amount of flowering going on here.

The most exciting thing has been that Phragmipedium longifolium has just opened up it's first flower yesterday. Phrags are kind of high maintenance because they like to be watered every day, but at the same time that makes them sort of easy. No worrying about when to water- just water all the time. We definitely would like to get more of them.

Bulbophyllum makoyanum went nuts in a big flush this year. It had 10+ flowers on all at the same time. It is still flowering, but not quite so spectacularly as the first flush. It really put on a ton of new growth this year over the winter at the babysitting greenhouse.

The Oncidium Gold Medal is flowering away too. It doesn't have quite such a ridiculous 4ft spike as Gower Ramsey has, but it is lovely none the less.

Phragmipedium bessae hybrid has 2 spikes with buds on, but I am still anxiously awaiting them to plump up and open.

Dendrobium bracteosum has opened up a bunch of flowers which are adorable.

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.

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.