Haraella retrocalla is spiking

Totally unexpectedly I have a great success with mounted Haraella retrocalla.
After it bloomed last fall, I cut off all the spikes because I wanted it to grow some roots and leaves.
And it surely did.
Now there are two new spikes coming.
I will let it bloom.
It is mounted on to the piece of grape wood that I got from the pet store.

Buds and active spikes

Here are some coming up blooms. Well, for now they are just buds or even spikes that started or activated.

Phalaenopsis bellina II. This one is very close to opening, maybe tomorrow, the color is already showing through the petals:



Phal. Brother Gelblienosa II (venosa x Gelblieber). It will have several blooms:



Phalaenopsis cornucervi red. After very brief one week rest each of its spikes already have red buds:



Phal. Equalacea coerulea:



Phal. Chang Maw Evergreen 'U-Bix' x P. {Tzu Chiang Litlitz x P. (Buena Jewel x Peach State Red)} x P. (Su-An Super Star x George Vasquez) activated old weirdly angled spike and started another one:

Bedford Nonpareil - one week after deflasking.

The seedlings survived first week and look fine to my unexperienced eye.



I have been keeping them in the propagation trays with domes and mist sprayed them to have the moss moist.
I never found any info on how long should they stay in those compots and decided to keep them there until the spring and then try to separate them into individual pots.
Now, couple of the seedlings are clearly outgrown their siblings:



I don't know if I should take them out to the own pots now or let them stay until the spring too.

Brother Gelblienosa bloom updated

As I suspected - the bloom of Phal. Brother Gelblienosa flattened with some time.
Now it looks like this:



But the bottom petals still look like there is a hint of folding in the middle - maybe that's how they should be.



There is a fragrance too, but you can only detect it around noon. It is hard to describe, I want to say something like carnation, but not exactly, maybe a bit sweeter than carnation...

Phalaenopsis violacea var sumatra

Violacea sumatra was just two dehydrated leaves with dried up roots when it arrived couple months ago.
I have potted it into sphagnum moss and placed into the propagation tray with dome.
Soon it started a new leaf and couple new roots.
The old leaves never perked up, but new one looks fine:

Phalaenopsis equestris var. coerulea

This would be second equestris type I currently own, the other one is orange.
Sadly I killed 'blue' and alba last year, don't think I ever entered them here.
Strangely I never had just regular equesris.
Anyways, this one is Phalaenopsis equestris var. coerulea:



Plant looks healthy and I think it is blooming sized.

Phalaenopsis Mancervi

This cute little bushy phal is a primary hybrid between cornu-cervi and mannii.
Plant has nice root system and an old spike.



Spike is not active now, I hope this hybrid reblooms on old spikes like cornucervi does, so I didn't cut off the spike.

Another deflasking

This is my "early birthday present" - one more flask from Kingfisher Orchids - Phal. Hawaii Dragon Girl (Phal. Dragon Tree Eagle ‘DT1’ X Phal. Penang Girl ‘Ching Ruey’).



It had large plants that were totally ready to come out:



Plants were tangled together with their long roots:



It took a while to carefully separate them and rinse under warm water. It turned out that instead of 20 plantlets there were over 40. I had to pot couple of them separately so they wouldn't bully the others with their excessive roots:



I hope they all will make it...

Phal. Samera II

This phalaenopsis plant came labeled Phal. bellina x Phal. violacea. I am going to log it under proper name - Samera and this would be the second one for me.




Great thing - this one is a blooming sized one.

Phalaenopsis amboinensis var. common

Phal. amboinensis var. common came from Kingfisher Orchids almost a year ago in the fall. Somehow I managed to rot all the roots on it almost instantly. I peeled all the mushy stuff from the root strings and potted it up into sphag with just inner strings.
I was pretty sure it would be gone soon.
To my surprise plant started to grow a new leaf, then another. It was hanging on with just root strings until the spring, new leaves came out smaller than the previous ones.
When spring came - it started multiple roots at once and a third leaf.
Now it looks like totally recovered, so I am entering it here.



View from the other side:



Hope future leaves will come in a normal size with all the roots.

Phal. Brother Gelblienosa blooming

I discovered opened flower today when I came home from work.
Phal. Gelblieber x venosa. Well, maybe it is not fully opened yet, we'll see tomorrow if it flattens up more.
Here it is now:



Very pretty flower.
And there are slight pinkish blotches on the lip:



I like it.
It was pretty hard to photograph since bloom looks down, so I had to turn it up for the photosession.

Phalaenopsis Equalacea coerulea

Since last update blue Equalacea grew some nice roots, abandoned old spike start and produced totally new one:



Can't wait to see the bloom.

Deflasking phalaenopsis first time

Yesterday I decided to deflask my Phal Bedford Nonpareil seedlings.
Here is what I did.

Washed seedlings under warm tap water and laid them on to paper towel:




Filled clay pots on 2/3 with large bark pieces:




Added fresh sphagnum to the top:




Arranged seedlings in the sphagnum moss like this:



I didn't throw away anything and potted even smallest rootless babies (which is probably stupid):



Placed all the pots into the propagation tray with dome to keep humidity up and hope they will survive:

Adenium obesum

Here is what blooms every year without care, totally forgotten, rarely watered and not re-potted for many years.




I grew this adenium from a seed, it is about 6 years old. It spends summers outside in full sun, grows leaves and branches, gets water from the rains and blooms. When cold days come - I take it inside, where it usually looses most of the leaves and does nothing until spring.



I think it is the easiest houseplant to grow.

Phalaenopsis bellina II

I was going to post it as a bud update but then realized that this plant was never entered here. So, here is an introduction of yet one more bellina.
Not sure if bud will survive because I had to repot it today due to severe root rot, the yellow bottom leaf doesn't look good either.
Hope the bud will stay.

Two Brother Gelblienosas and their buds.

Phal. Gelblieber x venosa has just one bud on one spike, but it is much ahead in development and I can already see the pattern on the petals:



Phal. venosa x Gelblieber has already two buds on one spike and activated second spike. I wish it would hurry up a bit, so I could see its blooms side by side with the above plant.

Blooms update

I was out of country for a while and that's the reason for no posts. Meanwhile my phals continued blooming and here are the results.

Phal Buena Jewel x equestris alba has many flowers now and I noticed that blooms fade with age. Pretty pink blush around the white middle almost disappears on older flowers and lip color washes away:



They are still pretty and as a bonus - I discovered slight fragrance during sunny part of the day.


Phal. Vio Vio is working on a third bud. The flowers don't fade.