Phalaenopsis lobbii

Here is someone I was ready to throw away on several occasions, but every time was letting it stay:



Phal. lobbii has bad-hair day everyday. New leaves would come out damaged from the beginning and I could never figure out how to grow it. I tried to mount it, grow in a clay pot. Finally I just stuffed it into small net pot and hanged on the wall of the orchid tank.

Now it seems like the plant grows something beside the new root - a spike or a keiki:



The thing is so small that looking at it with bare eyes I thought it was just fat root split into two parts. With macro lens now I see that it is a separate growth.
I hope it is a spike.

Violacea alba

New leaf on the phalaenopsis violacea 'alba' is coming out pretty long, although a bit wider than the previous one:



I thought that with abundance of bright light plant would grow round leaves but that didn't happen.
Also not knowing better, I think, I was changing plants orientation a lot and leaf comes out all swirly. I am trying now to keep it at the same place, turned to the same side, hopefully leaf will straighten out.

Anyway, this post is not about the leaf. It is about a new spike that I discovered while watering my violacea alba. Here it is above the lowest leaf on the right:



For some reason plant didn't want to activate perfectly good and green old spike, but decided to grow this new one.
I already lost count of all the new spikes I discovered lately, but am getting really good at recognizing them from the first sight.

Orchid tank number two

Encouraged by the results of my first orchid tank I was also feeling sorry for all the orchids that didn't get in there.
After some efforts in convincing my family that I absolutely need the second tank - here it is (two vandas there just to see if they will fit):



It is much taller than the first one and is 62" long by 20" wide and 32" high. We had to shuffle the furniture around the basement to find a spot for it.
There are two shelves already in place, I plan to put vandas and cattleyas on them and will create couple levels for phals at the bottom.
The Hydrofarm light fixture is on order, meanwhile I will have some fun cutting egg-crate to create the layout...

Yet one more new spike

Here is Phalaenopsis Vio Vio that is growing into a quite large plant now:



And here is what's going on from the back:



I am not sure what is it going to do with all those roots, but am pretty sure that the top left growth is a new spike.
This hybrid has wonderfully fragrant and large flowers.
Can't wait for blooms...

Phalaenopsis lueddemanniana II

There is a lot of activity going on the two spikes of my Phal. lueddemanniana II:



One spike is growing a keiki plus activated spike tip and the lower node, hopefully there will be blooms in future. Keiki grows well, it has its very own root and started the second one on the back:



The other spike is growing a bud and activated two lower nodes, probably branches with more buds will come out:



I also noticed the start of a new leaf, hope plant has enough energy to handle all these growings.

Lc. Love Knot 'Carmela's Blue'

Here is another dismounting.
I should not mount any plants anymore. They don't feel good in the house because of too low humidity and they grow disgusting stuff (mushrooms in my case) on the wood in the orchid tank with high humidity.
I had large piece of grape wood with two catts and very small vanda seedling mounted on it. They were doing well at first, but lately with all the heat and me missing waterings - vanda completely dried out and catts don't look too good either.
Catt. jenmanii grew its roots into wood too much so I had to leave it on the mount, but Lc. Love Knot 'Carmela's Blue' came off the mount easy and now is potted into clay pot with chc and enjoys spa treatment in the orchid tank:



New pseudobulb is coming out and roots have some green growing tips, I think it should be ok.

One more new spike

Phalaenopsis BaShi Blackspot alba:



At first sight I thought there were two new roots, but it actually seems that the growth on the right looks more like a spike:



I am not exactly sure what triggers all the spike starts in the tank, but guessing that combination of bright light and higher temps. Anyway, I am glad that I got my tank, otherwise who knows how long would I have to wait for the spikes in those low-light humidity trays...

Seedlings concerns

The seedlings with concerns are the ones of Phalaenopsis Hawaii Dragon Girl that I deflasked in the summer.
They have been growing well and didn't worry me much but recently I noticed a few of the leaves on random plants started to yellow:



They live in the orchid tank with no direct lamp above them shaded by other plants but still getting pretty bright light.



About a month ago they were in the humidity tray placed on the heating mat and I noticed at some point that some leaves looked like they had heat damage, they were pale, discolored and had wavy appearance (the word "boiled" came to my mind). I thought that probably heat mat produced too much heat and damaged some leaves. It was right before I got the tank, so I turned off the heat mat and transferred seedlings into tank.
Now, I cannot remember exactly, but it seems that the same leaves are now getting yellow.
Are there any other reasons for leaves to become randomly yellow? I am clueless and don't know if I should worry and do something about it.

Roses

Laelia sincorana var. coerulea

My little plant of Laelia sincorana var. coerulea is still alive. It finished growing two new pseudobulbs started in September and now I discovered yet one more start:



Looking through the pictures on the web, it seems that my plant is not very far from blooming size.
I placed it into orchid tank hoping that bright, warm and humid conitions will help it to grow faster.

Neofinetia falcata `Shojo`

Two new growths that started on Neofinetia falcata last August are progressing well:



The plant becomes clumpier and looks totally different from when it arrived as a tiny single growth with six leaves about a year ago.



I haven't repotted it for a while and moss doesn't look that fresh. I am not sure when is a good time to repot neofinetia, also am afraid to jinx it since it is growing well as is, but at some point I would have to do it, probably in spring.
I am very tempted to buy some more neos, especially the 'Kibana' with yellow flowers, but since it is quite pricey - I want first to make sure I can bloom this one that I have.
It spends time on the windowsill in the bright light and I let it dry between waterings.

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) II

This plant was a rescue from the beginning. It came last summer together with its sibling. While sibling had two spikes and was extremely healthy, this little guy had rotten mess instead of roots.
I didn't even bother to log it here.
Surprisingly plant didn't die, grew couple of roots and one new leaf(much smaller than all the previous because of the root problems:



Yesterday when watering I noticed few small root starts along the stem. On the closer inspection, one of them looks like a spike to me (the one on the far right that grows up):



I might be wrong, it could be just a root that decided to grow up, but still it is enough to get this plant logged here ...

Dtps. Liu's Cute Angel update

Whatever Dtps. Liu's Cute Angel was growing - is not a root, because plant(being sarcastic, I guess) grew a new root right beside the thing and it looks totally different:



I still don't see a mitten, but am going to assume it is a spike and will oficially wait for the blooms.
Here is the view from the back:



Off-topic: I removed another tube from my lighting fixture in the tank and now it has just two 4ft T5 HO tubes in the middle. With three tubes it was still too strong light for phals, some of them had leaves just 12 inch from the lamp and they were burning. I positioned the fixture to have tubes above the middle shelf and put cattleyas there so they are right under the tubes. Phals are concentrated on the back and front where there is no direct lamp above them but still plenty of light.
Too bad I don't have light measuring device and have to experiment. Newest leaf on one of the bellinas got unsightly yellow patches because it was growing under burning lamp and I tried to shade it with other plants, oh bother...

Phalaenopsis Mancervi

Here is another victim of low-light conditions in humidity trays. It arrived back in July with a new leaf just starting up and here what became of it:



Unproportionally long comparing to the previous leaves.
Now in the tank it is starting the new one:



Would be interesting to see how it will turn out.

Phalaenopsis Penang Girl

I am very good at breaking the top on any phalaenopsis plant: mature or seedling, fully grown leaf or just tiny curled start. This one was the most annoying: I broke the top with new leaf start on the very first day after receiving seedling of Phal. Penang Girl back in summer.

The fact that this hybrid was on my wish list adds to all the grief that I went through. The same fact and also nice healthy roots made me keep the plant even though usually I don't bother.

After some while I noticed that broken leaf started to come out some more and now - there is a new growth:



There is also new root showing on the other side:



It looks like my Penang Girl might survive, so I decided to log it in.

Phal. Chang Maw Evergreen 'U-Bix' x....

Here is what I discovered hiding under the leaf of 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):



I really wish it had a shorter name.
I have many phals activated their spikes now, but when comparing them to guess which one will bloom first I didn't even consider this little hybrid.
It just finished profuse blooming on two spikes in September. Older spike shedded off, this newer spike was sleeping and I thought it will reactivate after a year of rest.
Now maybe it is responding to hot and humid conditions of orchid tank, I don't know.

I can clearly see the bud growing and am glad that at least this plant grows a bloom not a keiki...

Freaky stuff

I had vanda pumila group of small plants mounted on one piece of wood for a while. This was one of not too many mounted orchids that I was able to keep happy and growing even in low humidity, but I had to water it every day (sometimes I missed a day or two, but plants didn't compain much).
Few days ago I decided to hang it into orchid tank hoping that being mounted it would benefit from humid conditions there.
After just couple days something disgusting grew on the wood:



Looks like some kind of shroom and I don't know if it is harmful to orchids.
Of course I totally freaked out and removed the mount from the tank. Now the questions are - will the rest of the orchids in the tank be ok and what to do with vanda pumila mount.
I am thinking about destroying the shroom and wiping everything, even roots, with something like alcohol or peroxide.
Would that work? Will that be enough?

Phal. I-Hsin George

Ever since I got orchid tank I wanted to put my large specimen-sized George in there.
Being mounted on a large piece of grape wood, it would never fit the tank. At the same time I was having a real pain trying to keep its roots from drying out on the mount.
Finally I decided to be brutal and took George off the mount.
It was actually a good thing because part of the roots that was touching the wood rotted pretty badly, luckily it didn't spread to the stem.
I cut all the bottom part of the stem with old roots including two bottom leaves, so the root ball was big enough to snuggly fit the usual clay pot with slits(my orchids like those pots):



The long and narrow leaf that developed during the time George spent in the low-light conditions had to be trimmed too because now in the upright position it was in real danger of breaking together with the whole crown.

Now Phal. I-Hsin George is standing in the corner of the orchid tank.



Hopefully it will be ok...

Dtps. Liu's Cute Angel: can you see a mitten?

Something started to grow on Dtps. Liu's Cute Angel:



I am breaking my eyes trying to see a mitten shaped end that is usual for spike development. Unfortunately I can't see it yet:



Suspense is killing me, is it a spike or just a root...

Cattleya schilleriana

One of not too many cattleyas I am really excitied about is schilleriana.
My seedling from Clouds is doing great. It grew whole bunch of roots and now started a new pseudobulb:



It is a small species, so maybe after this new bulb matures - I will get some blooms?



This catt is pretty demanding about conditions and likes high humidity, bright light and temp changes between day and night. All these requirements are met in the orchid tank, so I moved there my schilleriana together with cattleya bicolor and couple other non-phal plants.

That place is getting really crowded...

Blooming phalaenopsis

Pink noId opened the first flower: