(ewww, look at the dust on top of my dryer....guess I should dust it a lil more often, or at least before I take pics. Yikes!)
Sunday, March 24, 2013
Mystery growth: Den. antennatum
If these actually turn out to be spikes, I might actually pee my pants. Really. Full story will be posted if they turn out right, but these are on the seedlings of Den. antennatum I have that I deflasked myself. Cross your fingers everybody!
(ewww, look at the dust on top of my dryer....guess I should dust it a lil more often, or at least before I take pics. Yikes!)
(ewww, look at the dust on top of my dryer....guess I should dust it a lil more often, or at least before I take pics. Yikes!)
Thursday, March 21, 2013
Repotting day
Had the day off (still on spring break, yay!) so I got crackin' on the massive crapton of orchid repotting I have to do. I tackled the seedling/miniature high light shelf today. I divided and repotted almost everything that needed it. Because of this, I ended up with duplicates of several (including SIX of the Psh. fragrans, yikes), and that means they might be up for sale here in about a month. Stay tuned if you're interested in any of them!
These all started out in a plain divided black nursery tray, but since I had to upgrade several plants to larger pots (and some to smaller too I guess), I had to do away with the tray and use these tubs instead. Inner tub has drainage holes, outer tub doesn't, which lets water drain after watering, but not drip all over my shelves when I put them back.
Two of the Den. antennatum are still due for repots, but as they have mystery growths that might actually turn out to be spikes, I am leaving them the way they are for now. Plus, I ran myself out of sphag. I used something like a quarter of a brick today.
These all started out in a plain divided black nursery tray, but since I had to upgrade several plants to larger pots (and some to smaller too I guess), I had to do away with the tray and use these tubs instead. Inner tub has drainage holes, outer tub doesn't, which lets water drain after watering, but not drip all over my shelves when I put them back.
Two of the Den. antennatum are still due for repots, but as they have mystery growths that might actually turn out to be spikes, I am leaving them the way they are for now. Plus, I ran myself out of sphag. I used something like a quarter of a brick today.
African violet show haul!
I can't pass up a good AV show :) I go to an orchid show every fall, and now I guess I go to the AV show in the spring. But you can't just go to a show like this and leave empty handed, can you? Nope, I think its against the rules or something. But here's what I got last weekend at the show:
Ignore the orchid in the upper left corner (hehe!), I'll post pics of that one when it blooms soon. But I got leaves of Mac's Tiamat, Rainbow's Quiet Riot, Funambule, and some NoID discards from the nursery's own AV bench (I'm horrible!). I also got plants of Rob's Boolaroo and a couple NoID minatures. I have no idea what I'm going to do with the leaves....all of my leaf sprouting locations are either full of orchids, or in use at the moment. Gonna hafta do some rearranging, I guess.
Ignore the orchid in the upper left corner (hehe!), I'll post pics of that one when it blooms soon. But I got leaves of Mac's Tiamat, Rainbow's Quiet Riot, Funambule, and some NoID discards from the nursery's own AV bench (I'm horrible!). I also got plants of Rob's Boolaroo and a couple NoID minatures. I have no idea what I'm going to do with the leaves....all of my leaf sprouting locations are either full of orchids, or in use at the moment. Gonna hafta do some rearranging, I guess.
Friday, March 15, 2013
Now blooming: Psh. cochleata
Hooray, the squid has arrived!
I love this plant so much. This is just a quick snapshot as I was getting ready to leave town for spring break (whee!), but I plan to take nice official pics (read: set up the super-fancy black sheet background) when I get home.
I love this plant so much. This is just a quick snapshot as I was getting ready to leave town for spring break (whee!), but I plan to take nice official pics (read: set up the super-fancy black sheet background) when I get home.
Friday, March 8, 2013
My, how you've grown!
This is a photo progression I've wanted to do for a while but just now got around to actually doing it.
It's pretty rare that I take pictures of an orchid soon after I get it, but for some reason, I did when I picked up a tiny seedling of Vanda luzonica back in 2009. It was a $4 seedling special I picked up from the former Oak Hill Gardens when they visited for a society fall show. Even back then, I "knew" vandas weren't supposed to grow well here. They like lots and lots of humidity and bare roots, neither of which could be provided here. But hey, for 4 bucks, I can buy a baby one and see how long it takes before I kill it, right? I gave it a year, at the most.
Here it is back when i got it. There were actually 3 seedlings in this teeny tiny pot (I gave the other two away a couple years ago and kept the largest one in this pic). I knew it would never get enough humidity in coco fiber, so I got a small net pot and some sphag and repotted it shortly after this:
A year later, it was still alive. And growing. A lot. So I repotted it into a bigger pot.
You guessed it. Here we are, more than 3 years after I first got it, and it's thriving in this no-humidity world. It's still in the same pot as it was 2 years ago (eek), but I've got it in a setup now that I really don't know how to get it out of without destroying the roots it has:
It's in that same net pot, suspended up off the bottom of this plastic food container (hence the skewers). The roots weave in and out of the net pot and wind around the bottom of the plastic container. I water it by filling up the container and letting it sit for an hour every couple days.
I have no idea how big these guys have to be to be considered "blooming size" but I understand it's quite large. I don't know if this is even approaching maturity or not. Maybe I'll get some blooms some day :)
It's pretty rare that I take pictures of an orchid soon after I get it, but for some reason, I did when I picked up a tiny seedling of Vanda luzonica back in 2009. It was a $4 seedling special I picked up from the former Oak Hill Gardens when they visited for a society fall show. Even back then, I "knew" vandas weren't supposed to grow well here. They like lots and lots of humidity and bare roots, neither of which could be provided here. But hey, for 4 bucks, I can buy a baby one and see how long it takes before I kill it, right? I gave it a year, at the most.
Here it is back when i got it. There were actually 3 seedlings in this teeny tiny pot (I gave the other two away a couple years ago and kept the largest one in this pic). I knew it would never get enough humidity in coco fiber, so I got a small net pot and some sphag and repotted it shortly after this:
A year later, it was still alive. And growing. A lot. So I repotted it into a bigger pot.
You guessed it. Here we are, more than 3 years after I first got it, and it's thriving in this no-humidity world. It's still in the same pot as it was 2 years ago (eek), but I've got it in a setup now that I really don't know how to get it out of without destroying the roots it has:
It's in that same net pot, suspended up off the bottom of this plastic food container (hence the skewers). The roots weave in and out of the net pot and wind around the bottom of the plastic container. I water it by filling up the container and letting it sit for an hour every couple days.
I have no idea how big these guys have to be to be considered "blooming size" but I understand it's quite large. I don't know if this is even approaching maturity or not. Maybe I'll get some blooms some day :)
Phal. bastianii
Another of my first-time species blooms. This one isn't a first-bloom seedling, but it's the first time it's bloomed under my care.
Sunday, March 3, 2013
Spring has sprung: version 2.0
So I was thinking to myself the other day....it's getting close to time for my faithful spring-bloomer orchid Maxillaria tenuifolia to be doin its thing. I hadn't noticed buds on it the last time I checked, so I was afraid it was gonna skip a year.
Lo and behold, this week's watering day came around...
Hooray! Now what's really strange: I divided my plant last summer in an effort to keep it from getting so huge and top-heavy. It's now in 3 pieces. The two SMALL pieces I cut off are the ones with buds, while the main plant doesn't have any. It's definitely the larger and healthier of the three pieces. Figure that one out for me.
"Everybody" says this orchid smells like coconut. I'm not one of the 'everybody' I guess. It certainly doesn't smell anything like coconut to me. I'm beginning to think my sniffer doesn't work the same as everyone else's.
Lo and behold, this week's watering day came around...
Hooray! Now what's really strange: I divided my plant last summer in an effort to keep it from getting so huge and top-heavy. It's now in 3 pieces. The two SMALL pieces I cut off are the ones with buds, while the main plant doesn't have any. It's definitely the larger and healthier of the three pieces. Figure that one out for me.
"Everybody" says this orchid smells like coconut. I'm not one of the 'everybody' I guess. It certainly doesn't smell anything like coconut to me. I'm beginning to think my sniffer doesn't work the same as everyone else's.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)