Not an orchid nor an AV....it's my first bonsai!

Trying something completely new!  I've never had a bonsai and was always afraid of trying one because they seemed like a lot of work, etc.

But hey, you only live once, right?  So I read up on them a bit, then just happened to wander into a semi-local nursery just after they'd gotten a whole huge shipment of super-healthy pre-bonsai of all types.  I couldn't resist.

I picked this one out, a Shimpaku Juniper, as it had the best 'character' in the trunk of all the junipers there.  I plan to give it a bigger/stronger bend in the future.  I grossly underestimated the size of wire I'd need for this trunk (it's thicker than I thought it was!), so now I have to wait on bigger wire, ha!

I gave it its first rough hack today.  Cut off two main branches and several smaller ones.  I will refine the shape and whatnot when I repot and wire it later.  I don't have a concave cutter yet, so there are branch knobs still.

I will update with pics as it progresses.  I understand this is one of the slower growing types, so don't expect frequent updates, lol!

In spike: Phal. bellina #1 and Neo. falcata

First up, one of my two Phal. bellina (this is the largest of the two, so it is by default called #1).  Yet another of my $4 Oak Hill seedlings that is finally maturing.  This one put out a spike last summer (you can see it below the one with the arrow), but it stalled for some reason and never got any bigger than this.  This year's spike is going much more according to plan:

Next is my Neo. (I refuse to call it Vanda) falcata.  Never thought I'd be able to bloom this.  Picked this and a Neostylis up last year at the spring show, figuring I would kill it like I have other small vandaceous plants in the past.  After blooming last year (in spike when I bought it), it put out what I thought would become a new fan...3 or 4 spotted pointy growths in a cluster; looked just like a tiny new fan emerging.  It stopped growing, so I gave up on it.  Then, a couple weeks ago, I looked the plant over and saw the "new fan" was growing again....yay!  Except it turned into a bloom spike instead!  It's now got a second "new fan/spike" just peeking out of the opposite side of the plant...I guess we'll have to wait and see what it turns into!

Now blooming: Phal. Mayamar

Oops, I guess I forgot to post this one!  It's been blooming for a couple weeks now, and I could've swore I posted the pics up here, but I must not have.  Anyway, here they are.

I love this flower.  I have a thing for waxy red phals.  This one is a solid color when viewed normally, but has spots and bars when backlit.  A white and black background for comparison:

Teaser!

Not much happening lately, so I ordered some more plants to make something happen!  Official pics will be coming later, but here's a teaser of what I got:

Now blooming: Phal. pulcherrima var. champornensis

Pleasantly surprised by this one.  I much prefer this color form over the pink-base-with-yellow-flares version.  Tried to cross this with my open cornu-cervi and make Phal. Summer Red using this color form, but the cross didn't take (quite possibly because I really wasn't sure what I was doing).  But there's more cornu-cervi flowers coming in soon, so I'll try again.  I think it might make an interesting cross.

Now blooming: Rlc. Satoru Toshima 'Lake View'

Here it is!  The ginormo catt.  It blasted one of its 4 buds, but the others are open/opening just fine.  Not as large as last time, just as I figured, but these two aren't half bad :)

I was worried about a poor presentation, with the buds being so close together, but these straightened themselves out well.

And of course, here's a pic with a (horribly blurry and crooked) ruler.  Natural spread of just over 5.5", full spread of at least 6", possibly 7" if you stretched 'em.

Vanilla extract!

I found a thread late last year on OrchidGeeks about making your own vanilla extract.  I never realized this could be done, but after reading the thread, I realized how ridiculously simple it is.

So fast forward a few months, and here's my attempt!

I highly recommend VanillaProductsUSA, the beans were super cheap and their shipping was fast.  Their recipe calls for more beans in less vodka and with a shorter wait time, but I decided to go with less beans but a longer brew.  I plan to make up some bottles of this for Christmas this year, so this stuff has plenty of time to....mature?  I have no idea what to call it.

And here's all the beans chopped up and dumped in the bottle.  The vodka started to turn color almost immediately, so that's a good sign!  Bad news is I had little black vanilla seeds all over EVERYTHING as I was chopping up the beans.  Good news is it made my whole house smell like vanilla :)

Now blooming: Phal. equestris (rosea x aurea)

I hate this flower.

Don't get me wrong, I like pelorics and everything. But it ruined an awesome flower in my opinion. I mean, the lip(s) are RED. I don't think I've seen a red-lipped equestris before. Hopefully that comes across in the picture...if it doesn't, trust me, it's an interesting shade of red/maroon. But it also seems to have some flower growth/retaining issues...it has blasted all buds except this one so far, and each node of the spike grows a large leaf-like protrusion, giving the spike a very strange appearance. This is a first-bloom seedling, and it's flowering very small, so I'm hoping all the struggles from it right now are just because it's a first bloom and will be better next time.

There's also no pollinia. I suppose that means its sterile? It looks like a genetic mess to me so I doubt I'd ever try to breed with it, but it would be nice if the possibility was there. *shrug*

AAAARRRGGHHH!!!!!

Yep, you guessed it....that's what's left of the buds on my Rlc. Seto Rainbow.  They got THAT far along before blasting this time.  Completely and absolutely frustrating.  I came home from vacation to find them like this.  I don't know whether to blame it on being gone for a week, or just the nature of the plant itself.  Either way, there will be no blooms on this plant for a while.  Sadness.

Mystery growth: Angcm. distichum

If this is a bud, it's gonna bloom out of season.  This one bloomed in October last year, so July is a stretch.  I've been having a lot of that this year and I have no idea why.  Seems too high up on the plant to be a new growth.  *shrug*  Guess we'll just have to wait and see.

In bud: Rlc. Satoru Toshima 'Lake View'

Been waiting all year for this one :)

Last year when this one bloomed, there was only one single flower, but it was SEVEN INCHES ACROSS.  It was absolutely massive.  I will always have a soft spot in my heart for these big huge floofy cattleyas, even though I don't have the room to grow the really big ones.  This is the largest orchid I have, and it's bordering on getting too big.  But you can't argue with 7-inch flowers.

There are two sheaths with 2 buds each.  Getting pics of the flowers might end up being quite a challenge, as both sheaths are on the same side of the plant and face each other.  We'll have to see how they grow, but I'm pretty sure decent pics will be out of the question.  Oh well.  And with 4 buds coming in, I doubt I'll see 7-inch flowers this time either.  More flowers = smaller.

Nothing wrong with the color balance on your monitor, either.  The leaves of new growths on this plant come in very very very red (flash made it a bit pink).  The inside of the sheath was a pale yellow, while the outside was the same red color as the leaves.  The only green here was on the developing buds :)

Rob's Kitten Caboodle and NoID #2 (finally!)

Here's Rob's Kitten Caboodle (or maybe it's Kaboodle, I have no idea).  Got this one a year ago at the AV show, mostly for its variegated foliage.  This one can't make up its mind if it wants to variegate or not, but right now it seems to be happy with light foliage.  Flowers are a cute light blue/purple bell-shaped with slightly ruffled edges.

And finally, here's a bloom from number 2 of my original batch of discarded-leaf NoIDs.  No idea why this one took so long to bloom.  Of course, I can't make a definitive ID without a tag, but there's a good chance this one is Optimara Rita.

In bud: Rlc. Seto Rainbow 'Fantasy'

Another of my favorites.  I waited quite a while to post this one, since the last time it set buds, they blasted before maturing.  These buds are going very well, so I think we're safe this time.

This is a gorgeous, fragrant, multi-colored splash-petal catt.  It has yellow, purple, and pink splashes and a big floofy lip.  I bought this one sight-unseen from a nursery, and I'm glad I picked it up.

Now blooming: Rlc. Samantha Duncan 'Paradise' and pink NoID Dendrobium

Digital cameras have such a hard time with the color red.  This flower is no exception.  Believe me when I say the true color is actually a darker, velvety red, rather than this pinkish photo.  It wasn't a very good bloom this time around either, so I didn't bother setting up the "studio" and taking good pics with my SLR.  The flowers (there was a second, but it has died already) were very cupped this time, possibly due to being so close together when opening.  But still an amazing color.  I love this flower :)

And here's the no-name pink Dendrobium.  Not bad for a cheap sale-rack plant.  It's happy and bloomy so I keep it around.

In spike: Phal. Philishill

This one just bloomed last winter, and has been a traditional winter bloomer for me.  So I was kinda shocked to see it starting another spike this time of year.  This is a cute little primary hybrid of philippinensis and schilleriana, and my particular plant throws really nice, super-flat flowers.  When this one grows up in a few years, it will definitely be worth taking to a show or judging.

Now blooming: Den. antennatum (finally!)

Quite possibly my proudest orchid growing moment:  I've taken these dendrobiums from flask to bloom!

I ordered a flask of Den. antennatum in November 2010.  I had absolutely no clue how to deflask anything, so it was definitely trial and error.  I got them out of the flask, rinsed, and potted, then found an empty 2 gal aquarium (I kept bettas at the time, and had empty tanks lying around).  I figured the babies would need some air circulation, so I propped the glass lid of the tank off to the side a bit.  When I got up the next morning, most of the leaves of the babies had dried out tips, meaning they were lacking for humidity.  I panicked of course.  But once I got the humidity level up a bit, they recovered and continued to grow.  I didn't think they were going to make it past that first day.

I deflasked 30 plants that day, and only lost a single one over the course of their growing.  I gave away or sold 23 of them.  I still have five, and my mom has one.  Sometime last year, one of the people I sold some of them to posted a picture of one of their plants in spike, but I never saw pics of the flowers, if it ever made it to bloom.  So as far as I know, this is the first to bloom (with proof) out of that flask.

I originally got the flask because I absolutely adore this species.  I have an affinity for the strange flowers, so this one fits the bill.  I mean, it's got ANTENNAE.  It even has a very slight fragrance.  Way too cute for words.

Big in-spike/bud update!

So I guess this is what happens when I get too busy to update frequently:  I have to put lots of stuff into one giant post.  Sorry.

First up, my NoID pink dendrobium I got off a non-blooming clearance rack a couple years ago for something like 5 bucks.  It blooms lots, which is why I keep it around, even though it's pink and I'm not really a big fan of pink.

Next, my summer-blooming harlequin phallie, Yu Pin Pearl.  It's looking a bit thirsty lately...I think it's due for a bigger pot since it drinks the water out of its reservoir in less than a day now, and I can't seem to get it watered any more frequently than I have been.  Larger pot = larger reservoir, which should hopefully make it happier.  It's on the repot list.

And finally, double spikes on my Phal. Mayamar.  This is very unusual for me...in my five years of growing phals, I have yet to have one grow more than one spike at a time.  But even better yet, there's still an old green spike on this one too, and it's gone active again.  Whether or not that activity turns into blooms or keikis, time will tell.  This one grew three keikis last summer right after I got it, so it's apparently prone to keikis.  But the blooms on this one are just to die for (dark waxy red, one of my favorites), so I'm stoked about the possibility of three spikes worth of flowers.

Now blooming: Bc. Hoku Gem 'Freckles'

I love this catt.  The flowers open a rusty red/orange color, then fade to a solid yellow with red spots in a couple days.  It blooms on every single new growth.  It put out 2 growths this time, and it has 2 spikes.  The second one is about 2 or 3 weeks behind this one.

Rob's Boolaroo

I know, I've been a huge slacker, but I'm working on some updates, so bear with me.

Finally got some pics of one of the AV plants I got at the show this spring.  This is Rob's Boolaroo, a miniature trailer.  It hasn't started to trail yet, but I bought it just for the ridiculously cute little spotted flowers :)

In bud: Rlc. Samantha Duncan 'Paradise'

One of my favorite catts.  It has a nice round flower that is SHOCKINGLY red.  As in, burn your eyeballs red.  I've never really been able to get a decent picture of this one's bloom, as it's either opened upside down or hiding behind a leaf or some other such nonsense.  Hopefully this one is a nice bloom and I can get some awesome pictures.