Phalaenopsis Princess Kaiulani

I have to take a break in posting show pictures so I could log in my new purchases.
This is the first one and the one that I am most excited about because it came with blooms. Actually it came with a half spoiled bloom and a bud on Saturday, but by today the old bloom wilted and bud opened up the new flower. Here it is:



The wilted part is still there, I decided to wait until it falls off by itself.




Here is how the inside of the pot looks like:



I feel like it needs to be re-potted (I like my phals in clay pots with sphagnum), but should probably wait for blooming to end.

Montreal Orchid Show pictures batch four - some phals

Phalaenopsis Princess Kaiulani




Phalaenopsis Orchid World





Phal. amboinensis flava x Phal. cornucervi red





Phalaenopsis Tying Shin Champion




Phal. equestris x Phal Princess Midas

Montreal Orchid Show pictures third batch - some slippers

Paphiopedilum Liberty Taiwan. Really huge flower. I will be getting a seedling of this one next month from Crystal Star on Ottawa show.





Paphiopedilum stonei. This particular plant is now responsible for my obsession with stonei and its hybrids. If only I will find it here in Canada with our soo limited purchasing options.





Phragmipedium Mary Bess





Paphiopedilum Jogjae





Paphiopedilum Cascade Creek




Paphiopedilum Lady Isabel






To be continued...

Montreal Orchid Show pictures second batch

Dendrobium Thonachai Gold




Catt. Jewels Box 'Sheherazade', I think Maria has this lovely orchid.




Dendrobium Golden Talisman




Phalaenopsis Ching Her Star




Phalaenopsis Gan Lin Sunshine 'Orange'

Montreal Orchid Show

Some pictures from orchid show in Montreal this weekend.
Click the picture to see the full size. I actually have many-many more, but I need to resize each of them, because they are 4928X3264, so I will do it gradually in batches and publish under the label : Les Orchidophiles de Montreal Orchid Show - March 2012 - Montreal
If you are interested to see them, please check back to that link.
Oh, and I was smart this time and made sure to capture the label of each plant.
So, here is the first batch:

Milt. Safron Surprise



Dendrobium glomeratum



Paphiopedilums trio from Piping Rock display



Catlianthe Orange Crush



Phalaenopsis Lowland Juwel(yes, that's how it was spelled on the tag -Juwel, and I checked the Orchid Register website, it is correct name that was registered)




Bunch of masdies



Milt. Arnold Linsman




To be continued...

And now in full bloom

Micranthum pouch grew much bigger and now looks weirdly inflated. I like it.




Side view:



Armeniacum unwrapped its petals some more:



Side view:



And shot of my happy parvi couple together:



Wondering if micranthums pouch is still growing...

Two paphiopedilums are almost blooming

Well, the flowers are not opened completely yet, but of course I could not wait.
They are Paph. micranthum II and Paph. armeniacum II.
My first surprise was - how much the armeniacums flower is larger than micranthums. I never actually see them pictured together and for some reason assumed that micranthum bloom should be larger. It appears not:



Another surprise - how fast the micranthum bud developed comparing to armeniacum. I mean the time from discovering the bud and todays status.
Here is the micranthum as of today:



I am sure that petals will unwrap much more, but not sure if pouch will grow any larger. I like how delicately intricate the middle part is on micranthum, armeniacums is much simpler and bulkier(todays picture too):



To see the real shape of the blooms I would have to wait until the flowers will open completely, probably next weekend. So this was just a preview.

Getting rid of vases

I grew most of my vandas in the glass vases for about a year. It requires watering at least once a day, for the best results - twice.
While it was fine at the beginning when I only had couple, quickly it became a chore - when number of vandas grew up to thirteen.
I tried several of them in the clay pot with chc and it seems to be working.
So I made a transfer.
If roots system is good - I just curled roots into a clay pot and added a handful of chc. When there is not much of roots, I tied plant to plastic vanda basket, added chc there and put basket into pot.




Now I have only Vanda tessellata in a glass vase because her roots are too awkward to fit into pot.

Phalaenopsis cornucervi

Phal cornucervi has pretty sad history. Initially it arrived mounted with bunch of healthy roots and two inactive spikes.
I potted it into plastic pot with moss and promptly rotted most of the roots.
Scared of loosing the plant I took it out of pot and mounted on the piece of wood. There is a blogpost about it: Phalaenopsis cornu-cervi mounted

After a while I noticed that instead of improving it lost more roots that just dried out. I freaked out and potted it again but this time into smallest possible clay pot with sphagnum moss: Phal. cornucervi potted again

Now I can report that it was probably the right decision. Phal cornucervi now started a new healthy leaf, new root and activated a spike. There is a new bud growing now:



I don't hold my breath about the bud, because it probably will blast while the heat is still on, but at least there is some good activity going.

Cattleya forbesii

Cattleya forbesii seedling is a good grower for me, it produces lots of new roots and I keep moving it into larger pots when roots start to stick out of drainage holes.



I usually put couple pieces of packing peanuts under plants base. The roots are so strong that they grew through that:




Foliage growth is not that vigorous, so probably still long time before blooming.

Neofinetia falcata `Shojo' and sprouting moss

I got my first small Neofinetia falcata only in January and potted it into a net pot with fresh sphagnum moss. I guess there were still some active spores in that moss because it started sprouting and now looks bright green in the pot:



The question is - should I be concerned about Neofinetia now? I know for sure that moss is fresh and it doesn't rot and doesn't smell bad either. Could they co-exist, or should I change moss to the new one?



I like how pink the new root tips are.

Update: Apparently it is not the moss sprouting, but just algae gets collected on the moss and it looks green.

Developing pouches

I can definitely see a nice and full pouch on Paphiopedilum armeniacum II now:



It looks like it is wrapped into petals around. Wondering how long before they will unfold. The color is nice and bright yellow already...

Paphiopedilum micranthum bud started to show some pink color and veining and pouch is rounding too:



This one has shorter spike and bud is nodding down more. Would be nice to have them both in bloom together.

Paphiopedilum emersonii II

Paph emersonii II has a bit larger leaf span than the first one, although it didn't flower yet.
Now I hope it started the bud:



Or they are just smallish leaves, I can never tell at this stage...

Lc. Love Knot 'Carmela's Blue'

This is a sad picture of dried out and wrinkled Lc. Love Knot 'Carmela's Blue'.



Together with bunch of small catt. seedlings that I got last fall, it was accidentally left for a while in the place where heating vent would blow the hot air on them. The seedling were just doubles that I planned to trade anyways, but this one was one and only.
I thought I will loose it too, but just noticed the small nub of new pseudobulb starting:



It might still survive, although will probably take years to come into a good shape.

Paph. malipoense update

One month passed since I noticed beginning of the spike and it didn't go much further, although it looks a bit more like a bud start then just two smallish leaves.

Phalaenopsis fasciata 'Shaffers'

After one successful flowering my Phal. fasciata 'Shaffers' tried to produce couple more buds on different spikes, but they all wilted not developed, I guess, because of too low humidity for it.
Finally it probably thought to itself: "Forget it!" and decided to turn its energy somewhere else.
So, now it is getting a new leaf:




And a new root on the other side:



I hope when the summer comes (and our summers are usually pretty hot and humid), it will try to bud again and maybe succeed...

Paphiopedilum armeniacum II

Paph. armeniacum is really taking its time, I don't even check on it every day, seems like it doesn't change much:



Well, I must admit, there is some progress, when compared to the last update, but I thought it will be fully open by this time.




The spike grew enormously long and leggy and not exactly straight. I wonder if I should have moved it into brighter spot, so it wouldn't follow the light.