Paph. St. Swithin bud update

It has been couple weeks since last picture and the bud grew quite noticeable:



Humidity improved a bit and mostly stays at 40%, although during midday sun it drops for a while but climbs back after sun is gone.



Bud looks very small, I wonder if it will continue to grow before opening or I will have super tiny bloom. Still I like it.

Phal. Princess Kaiulani IV

Yet one more Princess Kaiulani is joining my collection but I still have just three of them because the number III died recently.
I got the new one from Ten Shin Gardens during the show in Ottawa for only $20. It has a spoiled bloom on a short spike.

The roots look fine:



Potted into net pot with sphagnum:



I am hoping it will be different from my other PKs.

Phal. stuartiana 'yellow' x 'green'

It is a new purchse and the tag really stated Phalaenopsis stuartiana 'yellow' x 'green'.



Plant came from Crystal Star Orchids and as always with their plants - the roots appeared quite nice during repotting:



Vendor noted that this plant needs to be kept a bit drier during winter and if it is going to be in the humid environment - it is better mounted. I don't like mounts so I decided to pot it into the net pot, hoping that moss will have a chance to dry out fast enough for stuartiana.

Phal. Liu's Cute Angel: first bloom

Liu's Cute Angel opened first bud today and it is really extremely cute:



Spike grows upright, plant is very compact and takes minimal space in the tank:



I like orange splashes around the middle of the flower, I didn't see it on pictures of other plants on the web.



Contrasting red lip looks wonderful.



There are few buds on the spike and separate small branch:

Pictures from Ottawa show - phals

Phal. Yaphon Image x amboinensis:



Phal. lobbii:



Phal. equestris 'Orange' x mannii v. flava:



Phal. Cassandra:



Phal. Mini Mark:



Phal. Tristar Snow Princess:



Phal. Penang Girl:

Pictures from Ottawa orchid show

Just a few pictures of plants that impressed me for one or another reason.

Incredible Phal. lueddemanniana with thousands of keikis, roots and blooms.



Pictures came out dark because lighting above it was not great and my flash didn't help much, but you get the idea. Here is the closer view of the part of the plant:



And here how the flowers look on it:



I have lueddemanniana with one keiki and now am really thinking of keeping it on the mother plant and try to grow such a specimen myself.

Now the humongous Bulb. phalaenopsis:



You can see how huge it is comparing to the phrag on the picture - phrags are not small plants. The flower looks so cool all fuzzy:



I never knew they could grow so big. Certainly not the plant for my growing space.

A group of Masdevallia coccinea alba:



And Masdevallia Bella Donna, because I can't grow them:



A specimen of Dendrobium densiflorum. I am not a huge fan of dendrobiums but would like to have this one:

New purchases from the show

Two paphs from Piping Rock. Smaller one is the sanderianum seedling, larger one - the blooming sized Prince Edward of York, which is a primary hybrid rothschildianum x sanderianum:



Responsible for this two purchases is my St.Swithin that produced the bud on my window and made me think that I can grow multifloral paphs. I hope the two new ones will follow him...

Four phals. On the back - stuartiana and Mituo Sun King (my second one and totally different from the first one), both are in bloom from Crystal Star.
On the front - Ho's Lovely Amethyst with buds and Princess Kaiulani with spoiled flower, both from Ten Shin Gardens.



Closer view of stuartiana bloom:



Closer view of Mituo Sun King:

Coming up: Phal. Liu's Cute Angel

First bud on Phal. Liu's Cute Angel is almost ready to open:



Notice the next bud - it was accidentally caught on my hand when I was taking other plant out from the tank. I was lazy to move it so I could have better access to the plants behind and here is the result. I was almost crying...

Plant itself looks good and healthy:



The spike is growing a branch too. I like how small and compact the plant is, it almost looks overpotted compared to the size of the pot, but that pot is full of roots and they are sticking out from all the sides:



Such a busy little plant.

Paph. St. Swithin weekly bud update

One more week went by and bud is still alive. It climbed out of the leaves some more and now I can see the actual spike:



It is first multifloral paph that spiked for me and I am not sure if it is a normal pace, but it defnitely grows faster than the last spike on Paph. malipoense.

The bud looks extremely small compared to the foliage and has only one head, even though this paph is multifloral:



Probably it will be not the best blooming because of all the mites and low humidity, but I am really happy that it did spike at all and am planning to purchase more of this type of paphs. Just "accidentally" I noticed that Clouds has BS Paph.W.Ambler listed on the website - another roth primary that I wouldn't mind getting...

Phal. violacea var. sumatra

Phalaenopsis violacea var. sumatra arrived last summer totally dehydrated almost with no roots but with a small leaf start. After spending full time in the humidity trays it started some roots, grew another leaf, but bottom leaves stayed wrinkled.
Now in the orchid tank I noticed that bottom leaves don't look that bad anymore.
It is the time to graduate the plant from small clay pot to 3-inch plastic net pot (I just got a batch of 25 pots from ebay and will be gradually replacing 3-inch clay ones with them).
Roots look fine:



All repotted and ready to go back in the tank:

Phal. equestris orange

Equestris orange lives in the tank number two.
It is one of the few that had issues with high T5 HO light and displayed burgundy coloration on the leaves:



Meanwhile roots were growing like crazy and I thought about repotting it because one root started to stick out of the bottom drainage hole.



But then I discovered a spike start and decided to wait with repotting.



I figured that I have several equestris hybrids, two types of equestris species - blue and orange but still don't have the regular form. That's wrong, I have to get one...

Neofinetia falcata `Shojo`

I finally found time to repot my one and only neofinetia.
The roots were ok:



I chose slightly larger pot but put small plastic net pot turned upside down under the base of the plant:



Neofinetia now lives in my orchid tank and gets high light. I am still hoping for blooms but doesn't look like I am going to get them this year. Maybe it needs to mature both new growths before flowering, I don't know.

Paph. St. Swithin update

This is just to document development of the bud on St.Swithin - about a week after the last post.



The fact that it came out a bit more from the leaves makes me think that it is growing even in my low humidity and brown stripe going through the top of the bud is probably there by design.

Lueddemanniana: more blooms

Couple more buds opened on Phalaenopsis lueddemanniana.



I really like this plant, the fragrance is incredible too.



I think lueddemanniana is becoming one of my favorite species.



Here it is with other phal - hybrid with really long name. Both have very nice fragrance:

Maxillaria tenuifolia blooming

First bud on maxillaria opened today:



It is first time plant reblooming for me, so I am very proud of it even though I did not make any special effort for it to happen.



I like the look of the flower and the smell. There are few more buds on the plant so soon the room will be filled with coconut fragrance.