Bl. Morning Glory

I posted about Bl. Morning Glory exactly one year ago - in November 2011, when it just arrived from Clouds as a seedling.

Since then it grew many new pseudobulbs and roots.
Somewhere down the road I moved it to a larger pot.
Here it is now:



Recently I noticed that some bulbs started to grow something papery-white from inside the leaf:



I am guessing that's where the flowers might eventually come out from.
Am I right?

Vanda bensonii

Here is what used to be a rootless cutting and now the roots are bursting out of the pot:



The coconut husk seems to have a nice effect on growing roots, at least I noticed it with cattleyas and vandas:



Vanda bensonii is now concentrating on growing some new leaves too. I am not sure how long it would be before it blooms, but am happy that it became a plant from a cutting and keeps growing.

Dying Phal. Lea Marie Salazar

There is not much to say, the pictures will tell it all:







One of those black spots from the last picture appeared on the newest leaf on the crease when it was still unfolded, small and growing. The leaf broke and started to blacken by the edge. I cut black stuff off but the edge became black again. I was cutting that leaf until there was nothing left to cut and the black stuff went inside.

I have no idea what those black patches are. I rubbed them with alcohol, sprinkled with cinnamon with no effect. They don't seem to get larger rapidly, if leaf didn't break, plant would probably still be ok, although with damaged leaves.

Now it is somewhat isolated and I am not throwing it away because of all the money I spent on it - there is a spike, maybe it will grow a keiki.

Dendrobium cochliodes

Three seedlings of Dendrobium cochliodes:



Each of them is now showing the signs of new growth:



It is strange because I am not very good with dendrobiums and even worse with dendrobium seedlings.



They grow pretty large so my babies have long way before blooming.

Phalaenopsis venosa

I got this plant for a while, it arrived here during summer, I just forgot to log it in.
There is not much I can say about Phalaenopsis venosa, never saw one blooming in person, but read somewhere that flowers smell like crushed centipede. Since then I decided to smell crushed centipede but never had a chance yet.



My plant used to be a keiki because I found the remainings of an old spike that it was connected to the mother plant with. There wasn't much roots but maybe it improved lately, plant has started a new leaf recently.
Hopefully I will have a chance to smell the flower before I will find the crushed centipede.

Bulbo news again

Bulbophyllum is a new genera that I am trying to grow now.

Bulbophyllum ambrosia is my test case. It survived some scale and started new pseudobulb since arriving here.

Well, new pseudobulb has already unfolded the leaf:




Yesterday, when watering, I noticed yet another new growth, but this time - on the oldest pseudobulb:



I like how small and cute the plant is. I am not sure if this active growing proves that it likes my conditions, but at least it doesn't die.

My next bulbo purchase will be Bulbophyllum frostii - another cute mini with flowers resembling dutch shoes.

Deflasked seedlings update

Phalaenopsis Bedford Nonpareil:




Phalaenopsis Hawaii Dragon Girl:







Both of them were deflasked at the end of July, but Dragon Girls were much larger in the flask. I noticed that they are also growing faster out of the flask.
Now I understand that I should have kept the Bedford Nonpareil babies in flask much longer.
Oh well, we learn from our mistakes, important thing - they are still alive.

Now seedlings are about 4 months out of the flask. Since this is my first time in deflasking - I am not sure if their growth rate is acceptable or not.
What do you think?

Phalaenopsis sumatrana progress

Phal. sumatrana started yet another new leaf:



It did a good job growing this season and is getting closer to a blooming size.
I got it from Clouds last year as a seedling when I had this idea - to collect all phalaenopsis species. I was buying whatever I could get here despite plant size and conditions.

Phal. sumatrana turned out to be a good buy as everything from Clouds.

Done with pleurothallids

I am done with masdies and draculas. As much as I hate to admit my unsuccesses - at some point it would become obvious - pleuros are not my plants. Either they don't like my conditions, or they don't like me, or both.

I tried... Increasing humidity, keeping them in the cool basement.
Now I give up - they don't look happy no matter what I do, so why should I even bother.



I don't need those finicky small plants with their microscopic blooms(convincing myself of course, they are adorable).

At this point I am not trying anymore.
Eventually every each of them will hit the garbage and I am not buying any ever again.

One of my "growing areas"

Here is where my high light orchids live:



The window spans from the seiling on the main floor down to the basement by the staircase. Sun appears from the left at sunrise and moves through the area whole morning until about 1 pm. So the left part of the area gets strong noon light and the right part - just a morning sun.

Here is the windowsill, that's where I used to burn my catts and vandas until figured out to adjust them to the strong sun gradually. It is a bit crowded, but I plan to put some small plants on the top shelf in the orchidarium where the light might be too strong for phals.



Vandas along the railing, there is plenty of space to get some more (evil smile):




Some of my phalaenopsis plants are enjoying the morning sun:



And here is Emma napping right on everybody's way, so we have to carefully step over her. She likes the sun too and luckily ignores my plants:

Keiki or just a spike branch?

Here is my Phalaenopsis lueddemanniana II with three old spikes :



On the spike in the top left corner there is some strange growth from the node. I don't have much experience with such things and am dying to know if it is a keiki or just a side branch of the spike that will have some flowers in a while.

Here is a closer picture of the thing:



Are there any experts reading this (or somebody who had grown at least one keiki and saw the start of one)? Does it look like this?
Maria, what do you think?

Phalaenopsis bellina III problem continued.

Turns out that it probably wasn't a problem.

The yellow leaf did shed successfully, plant didn't die and now look, there is a start of a new leaf:



It almost seems that my bellina III is only allowed to have three leaves at the time, so she had to loose the oldest one before starting to grow the new one.
Weird...

One more spike discovered

Recently I posted about growth of existing spike on phalaenopsis hybrid - cross of Tsay's Evergreen and cornu-cervi 'red'
All that time I was looking at existing spike and didn't even notice the start of a new one in between the leaves.
Now it grew a lot and is clearly visible:



Maybe this plant will be as floriferous as my cornu-cervi 'red'.

Laelia tenebrosa II problem

The brownish patch on the pseudobulb of my newly purchased Laelia tenebrosa II appeared to be spreading. At least I noticed some slight increase of its area.
Of course I freaked out and cut off the whole pseudobulb sprinkling some cinnamon powder on the cut:



Now there is still some dark spot on the lower part of older pseudobulb (behind the cut on the picture above) and darkish spots on the protective sheath of the newest pseudobulb:



With my limited experience with cattleyas I am very close to throwing away the whole plant.

Is there any reason I shouldn't?

Vanda coerulea is growing

I moved Vanda coerulea from chc, arranging it the same way as larger vandas - plastic net pots between roots and sphagnum on the top.
I think it establishes well. There is a new leaf coming up now:

Liu's Rainbow update

About a month ago I posted about Phalaenopsis Liu's Rainbow. It lost almost all roots and I wasn't sure if it will make it.
Well, it started to grow a new leaf now:



Of course a new root would be much better in the situation, but, I guess, new leaf is a good sign too.

Hopefully Phal. Liu's Rainbow is on a way to recovery.

Vanda lamellata var. boxallii

There are several varieties in the lamellata species, I want to have them all of course. This is my first lamellata.
The flowers are old and started to wilt.



I like contrasting colors of blooms a lot.

Vanda suavis

Small seedling of Vanda suavis was badly burned right on arrival last fall.



It came together with seedling of Vanda liouvillei (I hope I spelled it correctly)from Clouds and I was stupid enough to place both of them on the windowsill with strong sun.
Vanda liouvillei burned right through the stem and died almost instantly.
Vanda suavis got brown patch that stayed dry. It didn't die, produced couple new leaves that moved the sunburn to the sides.



I will be able to peel off the unsightly leaves with brown damage, when it grows more new leaves.

Phal. bellina III - possible problem.

Phal. bellina III has yellowed its oldest leaf.



I know it is normal aging process when phalaenopsis sheds the old leaf, but this plant has only three of them. So, why would you shed a leaf if you don't have that many in the first place.
I decided to check the roots:



There were some rotted pieces, but not too much - I peeled them leaving the inner string, all the rest roots are firm and have some growing tips. I mean they are not the greatest, but I saw much worse. I looked at removing the yellowing leaf, but that could result in some damage to existing roots at the base, so I wiped the area at the base with some listerine mixed with water(just in case) and potted plant back using cleaned pot and fresh sphagnum:



At this point I am not sure what else should I do except let it shed the leaf and see what happens next.
Did you ever have this happened? What was the outcome? Any suggestions?

New spike discovered

I have several noId phals from the times when I had no idea about all the orchid species beyond the ones sold at the grocery stores.
They are still potted into their old clear plastic pots with old cheap Shultz bark mix, I don't fuss with them much, water every couple weeks when don't forget and surprisingly they are growing and regularly blooming.
One of them started a new spike:



Even though it is not as exciting as have some fancy novelty hybrid spiking, but still I will have some blooms and it is always nice.

Here is the plant itself:



I think probably keeping it in the basement could have helped with triggering the spike.

V. coerulea x C. vietnamica

I was watering my recently acquired cross of Vanda coerulea and Christensonia vietnamica and noticed two little nubbings of new roots.

One is smaller:



The other one is a bit bigger:



When I have a plant with almost no roots, seeing such new growths makes me as happy as seeing the blooms.

Phal. cornucervi 'red' x Tsay's Evergreen spike

It looks like the newest spike that was stalled on the cross of red cornu-cervi and Tsay's Evergreen did grow a little bit.
I was looking at old picture from its arrival and comparing to today's - spike did grow:



Of course it is still far from creating a bud yet:



I also noticed two new fat roots along the stem and increased size of the newest leaf.
All in all it is adjusting well and maybe I will see the bloom some time soon - have no idea how it will look though.

Seaweed extract

There is a lot of talk about wonders that seaweed extract does to orchids.
At some point when I read about it for the first time, I searched our stores and found some liquid product at Rona that you supposed to spray all over the foliage:



Excided and happy I picked the first victim - old noId phal to test the product. After first squeeze I was ready to throw up, the stink was undescribeable(this word doesn't look right), but phal didn't mind.
Dedicated to my orchids, I put a mask over my nose and sprayed them all in the powder room, which could not be used for a while because of that dreadfull smell.
I never repeated the treatment, but occasionally looked through the stores to see if there are alternative products to try.
Couple weeks ago I came across the Home Hardware website, searched for seaweed extract and something came up. It is a dried seaweed, that you mix in water used for watering plants:



Of course I decided to try that one too.
Instructions say to dissolve content of the package (30 g) in the gallon of warm water and then use the resulted mixture as concentrate to add to water in proportions of 3 tsp to one liter of water.
The 3.78 L orange juice jug was promptly bought and emptied. It will be a convenient storage for the concentrate.
Black stuff in the package appeared to be some pressed sticky substance (I was expecting the powder)but at least it didn't have that strong stink, just slight sushi smell. It dissolved easily in the warm tap water and made the water look dark brownish black.
Concentrate supposed to be kept in cool place, so I took it down to the basement, standing on the concrete floor it should feel pretty cool. Hope it doesn't become stinky with time.
Next watering I will start using it and wait for wonders...

Did anybody use any of those? Were there any results? Did you find other types of seaweed extract?

Paphiopedilum Delrosi 'Murrey'

This roth cross is still alive and I am very proud of it.



Since the time I won Paphiopedilum Delrosi 'Murrey' on the SlipperTalk auction and got here, it did shed one old leaf, grew a new leaf that was started already, survived the spider mites attack and now I detected the start of another leaf:



It arrived potted into plastic pot, but I am not very good with plastic pots when they are over 2 1/2 inch, so I moved my plant into my usual clay pot with chc and it seems delrosi didn't mind.

Although right now it lives in the basement with my parvisepalums, I think it might have to be moved when winter comes. Cross of rothschildianum and delenatii it is probably better off in the warmer spot.