More keiki?!

Phalaenopsis pulchra is growing something simultaneously from the two nodes on the same spike:



I am pretty sure both are the keiki. Am I right?

Vanda denisoniana x Trudelia pumila

Primary cross between vanda denisoniana and trudelia pumila should be on a smaller side. I am not sure if it will take denisoniana fragrance.



It is a blooming sized plant, but I might not see flowers for a while since the roots are very sparse. Hopefully plant will grow more roots.

Old seedlings

In the summer 2011 I have purchased 8 seedlings of phalaenopsis species. They were unfortunate enough to be mailed right at the end of postal strike and got overheated a bit.
Anyway, half of them didn't make it, the other four are still alive: two of them are actually growing nicely. Now, since there is still some room in the heated humidity trays, they can take advantage of warm humid conditions, maybe it will boost their growth a bit.

I have repotted both into fresh sphagnum moss, roots look fine.

Phalaenopsis violacea var mentawai:



Potted up:



Phalaenopsis lueddemanniana:



Potted up:



Other two - tetraspis and pantherina are next.

Repotted javanicas

Got these two plants of Phalaenopsis javanica last spring from Ten Shin Gardens. They were supposed to be blooming sized but never bloomed yet.
I decided to put them both into heated propagation trays together with phalaenopsis seedlings to take advantage of hot and humid conditions of that "phal-paradise".
Both were repotted into fresh moss and clean pots to make sure that nothing funny gets into those trays.

Unpotted javanicas showed some new root growth:



Now potted into new pots with fresh sphagnum moss ready to go into humidity trays for their "orchid vacation":



Here I digged out an old picture of them on arrival, apparently they grew two new leaves each:



Does anybody have Phalaenopsis javanica? How do you convince it to bloom?

Seedlings

I was bored last weekend and decided to move my phalaenopsis seedlings around, again.
There were actually several reasons to do it. With pots being on the heat mat I noticed that they dry out too fast, so I wanted to increase the layer of sphagnum moss in the pots, get rid of net pots and was really curious about their roots conditions.

The roots were fine and growing on the most of the seedlings. I didn't loose any of them yet. Since they were out of pots - I did sort them by size, again, created several compots to use valuable space on the heat mats more efficiently but still left some of the larger ones single. Here is what came out of it.

Phalaenopsis Bedford Nonpareil:



It is amazing how much difference in size is between the largest and the smallest seedlings from this flask.
Since heat mats make the tray bottom pretty warm I decided to raise pots above and placed each of them on the plastic net pot or vanda basket. Then I could leave a small layer of water right there in the trays, so humidity jumped to 85% with temps around 28 C - almost Borneo conditions.

Phalaenopsis Hawaii Dragon Girl:



Dragon girls are more consistent in size.
The only problem I have now - a lot of condensation on the clear plastic domes that cover those trays. I have to wipe them a lot.

Since rearranging seedlings free-ed(is that a word?) some space in the heated trays - I will put some of my other seedlings in there. Phal. gigantea will be first to get in.

George is growing a new leaf!

Just like the title states, I was passing by the place where Phalaenopsis I-Hsin George hangs on his mount and noticed a start of a new leaf:



It now gets a lot of light and I am trying to not let the root ball dry out too much. Hopefully mounting this huge phal was not a huge mistake.

Tacca seeds

Taccas are impressive tropical plants that have weirdly shaped large blooms with wiskers.
There are couple different species of Tacca. I used to have Tacca chantrieri - Black Bat plant, but it didn't grow well because of the low humidity.
After that I successfully germinated seeds of Tacca integrifolia - White Bat plant, but seedlings didn't survive, again because of low humidity.
Now with humidifier in the house and orchidarium to come(maybe someday, it is still delayed) - I decided to try Tacca seeds again. This time I bought seeds of Tacca nivea which I think is just a variety of integrifolia, so it is supposed to be white too.



Last time it took three weeks for seeds to sprout and they were in the plastic container seating on the top of computer case - it gets pretty warm there.
Now it should be better since I have heat mats.

I used the sphagnum moss as a medium, creating a layer in each of the two plastic containers:



5 seeds got into each container:



I covered them with long strings of moss, so it will be easy to check them out without disturbing:



Both containers are now inside the humidity tray on the heat mat together with my phalaenopsis seedlings.
Wonder if they will sprout.

Phalaenopsis Vio Vio

After blooming for pretty long time Phal. Vio Vio shedded its spike and took a break.
Now it looks like the break is over - it started to grow a new leaf:



New roots are coming along too (I find it very funny when they start coming out of pot):



Vio Vio is one of my favorite hybrids, I hope it will grow new spike for me soon.

Phalaenopsis lueddemanniana II

About a month ago I posted Phalaenopsis lueddemanniana II with something growing on its old spike. I wanted to know if it was a spike branch or a keiki.

After almost a month it grew a bit, but still doesn't look like either:



What in a world is it? I guess the spike would be skinnier, but keiki would have leaves and this growth looks like some dendro pseudobulb start. I am so puzzled.
View from other side:



Anybody has an idea?

Seedlings on heat mats

So, my phalaenopsis seedlings spent three days on the heat mats and they are still alive and growing.



I was monitoring temps and humidity and noticed that during night temps are around 25-27 C, during day 27 C and in the evening when whole family gathers in the office in front of their computers (three working computers, three persons and a dog in the smallish room) - temps in the trays get up to 29-30 C.



Humidity is between 60 and 70% and creates a lot of condensation on the domes. It gets up to 70%, I open the domes to wipe them and it drops to 60%, then I close the domes and it climbs back to 70%.



I am not sure if 30C is too high temps for seedlings. Clay pots feel warm at the bottom but not hot. The sphagnum moss dries faster now, so I need to check on them more often.
Hope I am doing the right thing with all this heating...

Phalaenopsis BaShi Blackspot alba

As the name suggests Phal. BaShi Blackspot should have spots, but the word alba in the name should make it all white.
This hybrid was registered in 2005 and produced by crossing
Brother Redland Spots and Yungho Gelb Canary.
I am not a big fan of spotted and harlequin phals, but really liked the shape of the bloom on this one. Hope this alba is really alba and will have just white blooms



Plant itself is quite substantial in leaf span and has nice roots. I potted it into clay pot with sphagnum just like all my phalaenopsis plants.

Seedling heat mats

Here is what I received in the mail yesterday:



Two of them - because I have two trays with phalaenopsis seedlings that I deflasked recently. They are pretty cheap and come in different sizes, some of them fit under two or four trays. I bought two of the one tray size because I don't have large enough spot to fit two or more trays together.

I could feel warmth coming out of them right away and the trays bottoms felt quite warm to touch. I put the thermometer to see how high the temps will go inside with closed domes - it rapidly jumped over 30 C.
I freaked out that seedlings will cook in there, opened trays and put folded towel between the mats and the trays. Temps went down to 29 C, I closed the domes and was watching it for a while. Temps stayed at 29, so I guess plants shouldn't cook.

I decided to buy heat mats after reading web on care after deflasking. Many sources claim that bottom heat is very beneficial for small seddlings.

We'll see if my babies will grow any faster.

Off topic: FPS Emma

Our gamer plays online.

Paph. St. Swithin update

Here is another multi hybrid - Paphiopedilum St. Swithin:



There are 4 fans on this plant, each of them is growing a new leaf. It also survived mites attack and lost bottom leaves from some fans.
St. Swithin shows more damage than Lady Isabel, the most annoying being rusty brown patches on many leaves.
Again, the roots area is the healthiest part of this paph.
I am hoping that humidifier will help with mites too, but also mist the foliage pretty often.

Even though Paph. St.Swithin is a mature plant that should be ready to bloom, I now more focused on getting it to grow healthy and pestless - nevermind blooming.

Maxillaria tenuifolia repotted but not divided

Roots started to stick out of the pot of Maxillaria tenuifolia and I decided to move it to a bigger one.

From the beginning I potted two very small rootless divisions of maxi into same pot to save the space and time watering, thinking that I will separate them after they both grow some roots.
Now, I thought, would be the good time to divide them into individual pots since both matured and grew more p-bulbs.

When I took maxillaria out of the pot I understood that separating those plants without serious root damage is an impossible task:



The roots of both plants tangled too much and filled the whole pot. I tried to swirl the roots in the water, but the ball proved to be pretty solid:



Finally I gave up, wrapped the whole thing in some fresh moss and slipped into larger plastic pot:



This is actually the only orchid that I grow in plastic pot with sphagnum moss and apparently it likes that.

Here is the picture from November 2011 when I just potted those two divisions:



Each plant had only two mature bulbs back then and look at them now! If only I could convince it to bloom now...

Paph. Lady Isabel update

This is just an update on one of my multifloral paphiopedilum hybrids - Lady Isabel.



The older fan got some type of rot inside the new growth during the summer, rot didn't spread, but fan will not grow anymore and definitely won't bloom. Newer fan keeps growing nicely.
Another good thing - the roots still look good:



Lady Isabel also survived the mites attack and there are still some scars visible on her leaves. Since mites are airborne and appear in dry conditions I am trying to mist my paphs as often as I can, but of course it increases the risk of rot. Well, it is either that or mites and I don't know what is worse.

Paphiopedilums as genus are giving me the most pest problems comparing with phals, vandas and catts. Considering how seldom they bloom, I am not sure if I even want to buy anymore of them.

Ascocenda rescue

Here is an ascocenda hybrid that I am trying to revive:



It has all brown and dried up roots, the leaves are a bit dehydrated too. I put it into vase just so I can see what is going on with those old brown roots and hoping that maybe some of them still have the life inside and might produce new growth.

It resides in the kitchen beside the sink, so I would fill up the vase often having it there and wouldn't forget about it.

We will see if this rescue operation will succeed.

Oh yeah, the cross is - Ascda. Suksamran Sunlight x Khun Nok, it should have orange flowers.

Bought a humidifier

Our house is heated by the hot air outlets in the floor. Needless to say that it kills all the humidity here. We bought our house new from the builder and first year it had around 60% RH probably because there was still some moisture in the basement etc.
This year however after just a month of heating it started to drop even below 40%.

Desperate, I bought small 3 Gal. Sunbeam warm mist vaporiser to keep air moist around the orchids. But with an open concept house that didn't help much. I needed something more powerful.

After some research about humidifiers and convincing the family that we really need to create more moisture environment in the house, last weekend I bought the 9 Gal console humidifier from Honeywell. It claims to work with the house up to 2300 sq.ft. which should be enough for me.



It quickly raised humidity from 38% to 50% on the first floor and I decided to keep it there, because setting it higher might grow mold in the house. Since my phals will go into orchidarium, I hope 50% should be enough for vandas, catts and paphs.

The unit is bulky, looks pretty ugly, turns on and off automatically to keep my 50% RH and is quite noisy (especially during the night) despite the words Quiet Care written on it.
Well, maybe the other ones are even louder, we will get used to it.

Vanda Somthawil

Vanda Somthawil is a primary hybrid between Vanda merrillii and Vanda denisoniana.



The flowers will have fragrance, I am really looking forward to get this one to bloom.
I potted it the same way as all my adult vandas, net pots with sphagnum at the top.

Mounting George

Over the summer Phal. I-Hsin George has been growing long new leaves that were sort of soft and floppy. Then I noticed that they were so floppy that started to nod down.
I tried to stake it for support but ended up breaking off the whole long and soft leaf.
Luckily the newer leaf already started, so the crown was still alive, but that newer leaf was growing looking down too.
George became a problem to handle because I was constantly worried that I can break off the whole crown.
Finally I decided that if he wants to look down with his new leaves - then I should probably mount him upside down so the newest leaf will just hang there without any risk to be broken.
For a while I couldn't find a suitable and large enough piece of wood, but yesterday at PetSmart I finally came across something that could be it:



Long story short - here is the result:



It is now hanging on the railing against the window and gets a lot of light. I put some sphagnum on the mount over the roots in hopes that it will keep some humidity there.



Here is the look from below. It shows the newest leaf and traces of the broken one(there is brown cinnamon powder collected on the cut). I am guessing that spikes will probably die off because of the change-of-environment shock:



I am not sure if it was a good idea to mount I-Hsin George, just hope it won't kill him.

Vandachostylis Sri-Siam

This cute vandaceous is an intergeneric primary hybrid (is there such thing?) between Vanda tessellata and Rhynchostylis gigantea:





The roots were so much tangled into the plastic basket that I could not easily free them up without damaging. So I decided to keep the basket and just placed it into clay pot adding the sphagnum right inside the basket. Hope it will work.

Pictures of Vandachostylis Sri-Siam that I found on the web suggest that it should have nicely waxed dark red flowers with some fragrance.