Bulbophyllum ambrosia

Bulbophyllum ambrosia is my very first bulbo. I got it because of the miniature size and sweet fragrance. Apparently some bulbos can have unpleasant smells - I would like to avoid those.



At first sight I thought that I got two separate plants with one and two p-bulbs each, but when re-potting I realized that they all belong to one same plant and there is a runner connecting farthest bulb to the rest.



I was surprised to see how fine and fragile the roots are, and probably damaged some of them when removing old moss.
If this one survives some time under my care, I will get more bulbos. So far on my list are:
Bulbophyllum frostii - miniature with flowers looking like dutch shoes and Bulbophyllum sumatranum - for their large striking blooms.
They both are available from J&L Orchids that will be visiting Montreal show in October.

Phalaenopsis gigantea

It is just a seedling:



New leaf is shiny and quite large comparing to the rest of the leaves. I am a bit worried about my phal. gigantea because I already tried to grow a seedling last year and promptly killed it with crown rot.
Now I am very careful when watering it and never mist the leaves at all.

Phal. Equalacea coerulea

Actually the label states:
Phal. violacea var. coerulea x equestris var. coerulea.
It fully opened today.



I am not sure if it would be fragrant, at least I didn't detect any smell today yet.

Phalaenopsis speciosa C1

I have managed to keep several buds from blasting on my Phalaenopsis speciosa C1 and here is the result:



Lovely blooms with purple lip. They supposed to have random red petal, but in my case it is random white petal. I guess there is more red color because plant is grown very warm now. I read somewhere that when it blooms during colder times - there is more white than red.



Nice fragrance is a bonus.



There are more buds and spikes coming on this plant. It is one of my favorites now too.

Phal hybrid with long name blooms

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) finally bloomed:



The bloom looks wonderful, it is pink with some magenta glow and very shiny at that.
The flower looks down, so I had to lay the pot on the grass to be able to take decent picture of the bloom:



The fragrance is very nice and reminds me of Princess Kaiulani a lot.

Cattleya araguaiensis

I got Cattleya araguaiensis from Ecuagenera preorder last March. Plant looked very sad - two wrinkled leaves with black spots and no healthy roots at all. I paid $25 for it and was really disappointed, but still took it, since it was the top of my "most wanted" list.
I potted plant into chc and watered once a week. After a while I noticed a new growth which is growing into a pseudobulb. Now I think it can be logged in here, since there is a chance plant will make it:



Old leaves still have the black and brown patches, I monitor them to make sure they don't get near the new growth, but they seem to stay the same.
Cattleya araguaiensis is still on my wish list, but that would be a blooming sized plant I want to get.

Bl. Aurora

Bl. Aurora grew couple new pseudobulbs since I got it last fall from Clouds as a bonus plant:



Now one of the bulbs on the right started to show some growth from the top. I think it looks like start of the sheath where future blooms will develop:



The other possibility - it could be the second leaf growing. One of the parents of Bl. Aurora is Laelia anceps and sometimes (although rarely) it might have two leaves on the pseudobulb.

Small update on deflasked seedlings

They are still alive and started to show the signs of new growth - either roots or leaves, or both. Some of the larger ones are potted into individual pots:



I am still worried if I should have left them mixed up with the small ones in their compots. Time will tell if I made a mistake by potting them up separately.



Compots look like they are growing too:



The overgrown in the flask Hawaii Dragon Girl seedlings have all curled and deformed leaves. Hopefully new ones will grow normal:



Even the pots with the smaller Bedford Nonpareil show some new leaves:



So far I threw away three smallish seedlings from the plastic pots. I noticed that they started to rot the roots. Apparently plastic pots and moss don't agree with me. Urgently I moved all the seedlings from plastic pots to clay ones. Luckily none of the other seedlings had this problem yet.

I keep them all in my humidity trays and water by misting the moss every 2 days using lukewarm tap water with dilluted 20-20-20 fert.

Phalaenopsis Brother Gelblienosa II

More blooms have opened on Phal. Brother Gelblienosa II (venosa x Gelblieber):



Unfortunately second flower got squished by the first one so one petal came out deformed:



The third flower comes out fine, although on a very short spike. It seems a bit darker than two previous ones:



It is a delightful plant, I am glad I bought it.



There is actually one more bud growing on a third spike, hidden under the leaves. It was awkward to take a picture of:



I am not sure if it will bloom successfully considering such an unlucky position.

Yet one more preview

And I am very intrigued by this one.



The label on the plant reads:
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)

There was no actual picture of the cross anywhere, just pics of the parents. One of them - yellow, the other - almost solid red. I can see a bit of a reddish tinge coming through the petals on the bud.

The shape of the bud is quite interesting too, I hope flower will look nice.
There are two active spikes on the plant, but second one is still small and doesn't have buds yet:

Phalaenopsis cornu-cervi red

Phal. cornu-cervi red is one of my best purchases. Blooming constantly from April when I got it in bud and it seems that it doesn't want to stop. Flowers stay for a while, wilt, but new buds are ready to open almost instantly.



I have noticed that the more sun it gets - darker the flowers get.



It is in full bloom now again. Each spike has flower or two:



All this blooming doesn't seem to affect normal growth. It keeps producing new leaves and roots, and now there is a new spike coming out too:

Phalaenopsis I-Hsin George events

After blooming George was busy growing enormous quantitiy of roots along the stem (interestingly on one side only). I have no idea what is he going to do with all of them, but I guess they are needed for something:



Roots look like invasion of giant worms or little snakes, I mist them from time to time so they don't die from thirst:



Today however I noticed something else coming above one of the roots and I think it is a new spike:



Does that mean that I-Hsin George doesn't care about old spikes anymore? I don't know, but I do like all this activity. He also grows third new leaf at the same time:



Also he leans a lot on one side, so I probably need to find some way to support the stem, but nothing comes to my mind. Wire might damage the leaves, what else can be used?

Phal. speciosa C1: preview

Phal speciosa C1 with broken leaf keeps producing buds and spikes. Some of them didn't survive because of low humidity, but now in humidity tray several buds are hanging there and already show some red color.



I am not sure if they will live until blooming, so decided to log this picture of buds almost ready to open. Keep my fingers crossed and hope to see the open flowers soon.

Neofinetia falcata 'Shojo'

Ever since I got my first and only Neofinetia falcata last Christmas, it has been growing well, producing new roots and leaves.
Then at some point it started new fan from its base.
Now there is something growing above the bottom leaf:



The closer view:



I don't dare to even think that it could be a spike, because plant is so small at has only one mature growth, so my guess is - it's just another fan start. Which is still good - the clumpier it gets, sooner I see the flowers.
This all growths are pretty encouraging, I am thinking that my October Montreal show haul might include new Neo for me. I would like the green flowered one.

Exciting news

Yesterday we have ordered an orchidarium for me!
It is Grand Cayman model with six lamps from US company Orchidarium.
The sad part is - I have to wait for two months before it gets here, but I think it is worth waiting.
I am sure my orchids will be thrilled with their new home.
I have been searching for the images of the Grand Cayman setups, just to see how people are using them and found some pictures here:
Orchidarium pictures
and here:
Grand Cayman Orchidarium
Mine will host mostly phals, but I might put some catts and vandas at the very top to use the high light areas. I am planning to utilize the hanging space a lot by mounting some of my phals on to treefern slabs.
Hope it will look good too.

Phalaenopsis speciosa pink

Here is Phalaenopsis speciosa pink:



I am not sure what does the word pink in the label mean. I thought speciosa had white blooms with random red patches. I didn't find variety "pink" on the phals.net website. Maybe this one will have pink instead of red patches?

Plant appears to be blooming sized but is quite weak and doesn't have much roots. Hopefully it will recover and bloom someday to solve the mystery of the word "pink" in its name.

Suspicious growth on Maxillaria tenuifolia

Something started to grow from the below of one of the bulbs on my Maxillaria tenuifolia. For some reason it doesn't look like a new p-bulb growth to me. I think maybe it is a bud coming out?

The thing appears only on one bulb - far right one:



Here is the closer picture of the suspicious growth:



Of course I wanted to see it better and accidentally broke the protective sheath. Hope it won't kill that growth.
So, what do you think? Is it a bud?

Update: No, it is not a bud, just another pseudobulb started, which is kind of good too, but I really wanted a bud.

Laelia sincorana var. coerulea

This little cutie came a while ago mounted on a square piece of wood and it is bloom size plant.
Laelia sincorana is a dwarf species with huge (comparing to the plant size) flower. I looked up the coerulea blooms - they are gorgeous!



I have potted it into chc to encourage some root growths. I might mount it after, when there is more roots on the plant.

Mounted some catts

This piece of grape wood might look familiar. I tried to mount several mini phals on it last winter.
Well, it didn't work out, plants didn't look happy, I freaked out and took them off.

This time I decided to put some cattleyas on it. From left to right they are: Lc. Love Knot Carmelas Blue, vanda coerulescens seedling and Catt. jenmanii:



Roots are white because they didn't see the light being potted into clay pots with chc. I guess they will become green at some point maybe. View from the other side:



I am going to spray the roots twice a day. Not sure if I should put some moss to cover roots or not?
Cattleya jenmanii:



Lc. Love Knot Carmelas Blue:



Both catts should be quite small in size. I put vanda in between them so the middle wouldn't be empty.
Hope they all will grow nicely together.

The other "brother" bloomed too.

Phal. Brother Gelblienosa II (venosa x Gelblieber) bloomed.



And the flower looks a lot different then the first Brother Gelblienosa(Gelblieber x venosa). How cool is that!



They do have same fragrance though.
I like them both.

My blooming phals

I took my blooming phals outside to make a group picture yesterday. Here they are - Phal. Vio Vio, Lyndon Equator Jewel, Brother Gelblienosa and bellina II.



Phalaenopsis Vio Vio already totally lost first bloom, second bloom is wilted on the picture and there actually another bud is growing under the third flower.
It is amazing how long the blooms last on the Phal. Lyndon Equator Jewel.



Too bad they loose the color with age and older flowers look like there were bleached.



My favorite of all four of them is Phal. bellina II. It is fully opened now and smells incredible: