Paphiopedilum henryanum

New paph arrived today in the mail. I purchased Paph. henryanum from a member of SlipperTalk forum.
Plant looks gorgeous, 8 growths, spotless leaves.
It came barerooted, I mixed some fir bark with perlite and charcoal and added few river rocks to pot new henryanum.
Here it is in all its glory:



I placed henry in the larger tank beside my new phrags. Hope he will like brighter light and occasional slight breeze from the fan:

More pictures from show

Paphiopedilum seedlings: three weeks after deflasking

Seedlings are sill alive but I have noticed that moss stays wet too long. I think because there is not that many roots, moss doesn't have chance to dry out as fast as it did with my phalaenopsis deflasklings.
I decided to do something about it which of course involved pulling seedlings out of the medium.
Instead of having moss all the way to the bottom of the pots I filled pots for about half way with large bark pieces. Then put layer of moss above it.
I also made community pots a bit more crowded, so there are now four compots of sandie and only two of stonei.

Paph. sanderianum:



Paph. stonei:



Sanderianum seedlings look happier at the top but stonei grew a bit more of new roots while sandies use old flask roots still. Maybe different species have different priorities while growing, I don't know.
I threw away two more seedlings of stonei because of rotting damage on the leaves. And then there were 14....
Sanderianums count is still over 30, I didn't throw any yet...

New phrags

This is something I always wanted but didn't dare because of dry conditions in the house. Now with tanks I decided to try.
So, here is Phrag besseae :



It came from John Marcotte at Orchids Canada. The plant is just perfect: immaculate leaves, nice healthy roots and a spike! We'll see if it will bloom or drop.

The second plant is a hybrid between besseae and longifolium - Phrag. Eric Young:



I got it at the show in Montreal. The foliage on it is not perfect and has some damages, so normally I wouldn't buy such plant but three reasons made me do it anyway:
1. it has a spike;
2. damaged are old leaves, there are 4 fans,
one new growth:



and each of the mature growths has a small green nub which I hope will become a new fan:



So, even though it does not look all that nice now, I think it has a potential.
3. it was really cheap.

I put them into the larger tank:

Bud watch: Paphiopedilum Deperle 'Philippe'

I haven't had paphiopedilum bud watch for a while. The longest bud I waited for was Paph. malipoense, it took around 6 months from spike start to bloom.
Let's see how long this one will take.



I should probably mention that I get absolutely no credit for getting this plant to bloom. It was purchased with spike already started...

Phal. volacea var. alba

After many months of waiting and several blasted buds I finally have a bloom on Phal. violacea 'alba':



By now it already has not one but three spikes that all grow in the same direction and look sort of crowded.
There is one more bud growing, but I am not sure if it will flower or just blast as always.
I think bloom looks nice, I like white flowers with green edges or green tips. The fragrance is pleasant too.
All in all it probably was worth waiting.

Pictures from Eastern Canada Orchid Show - Part 2

Phrag. Jason Fisher:



Phal. delenatii x malipoense:



Phrag. caudatum:
(Update: according to knowledgeable folks at Slipper Talk forum - this plant is most likely mislabelled.)


Gang of minis from Piping Rock:



Cute display from Forrestview Gardens:



Paph. sanderianum (not often seen in bloom):



Paph Lussier:




Another burgundy paph:

New purchases

Here is what I got today at Eastern Canada Orchid Show:

Vanda coerulea. I already have one, but this one was so large and with two spikes so I could actually see the flowers and be sure that it is in fact the species, so I couldn't pass. The flowers are almost finished, but just to get an idea of how nice it is:





Two paphs. Paphiopedilum Deperle 'Philippe'(left) and Paph. Magic Lantern(right). Phil is growing a bud.

Pictures from Eastern Canada Orchid Show - Part 1

This year there was a lot of impressive slippers. So, we start with them.

Paph. St. Swithin. I counted there are 14 spikes with flowers. I could not count how many fans the plant has, way too many:




Phrag. Hanne Popow. I like soft pink color and cute shape of the blooms:



Paph. Sanders Pride. Beautiful twisted petals:



Phrag. Sergeant Eric. Lovely color:



Paph. Mount Toro. Gorgeous white with stripes hat from stonei:



And finally my favorite plant that goes straight to my wish list. Paph. Hideki Okuyama:



The whole plant:

Phalaenopsis bellina II

Bellina opened the second flower.
I like it a lot:

Seed pod watch: two months

It has been two months since I did my first pollination attempt. Seed pod is still there and growing.

I was taking out I-Hsin George for watering and thought it would be good time to snap a picture for update:



I think pod becomes too heavy for the spike and I really need to provide some type of support for the stem.

Phalaenopsis Princess Kaiulani

My favorite primary hybrid Phalaenopsis Princess Kaiulani finally opened the flower:



Incredible fragrance fills the tank.

Phal. Coral Isles x corningiana

Discovered one more new spike, really excited about this one.
Phal. Coral Isles x corningiana already had a spike, but instead of blooming it produced a keiki. Keiki is growing well and putting third leaf now. I decided to leave it on mother plant and when repotting plant I burried keikis roots into media too:



I thought that since plant spends an energy on growing this keiki I will never see blooms. Well, yesterday when watering I found a spike:



I am pretty sure that on the opposite side under the keikis leaf there is another spike start, but I could not get a picture of that one, so we will see it when it comes out from under the leaf.

I really like the wild shape of corningiana flowers and hope this cross will pick up something from it.

About deliciosa spike

Adorable deliciosa plant in need of repotting was growing a spike.
Then I noticed that spike grows right down into moss - dirty green moss that had to be replaced long time ago:



So, I decided to repot and try to change direction of the spike. Unpotted, the roots look fine - all fim, some growing points:



It appeared that no matter how I turn the plant in the pot - the spike never looks up. I tried this and that and finally settled for the following:



I placed small piece of packing peanut under the spike and put the plant into tank making sure that light shines in the opposite direction:



At this point I think I did everything I could to help plant realize that spike shouldn't grow into moss. Hope it gets a hint. Also hope that repotting will not abort the spike...

Phal. LD's Bear Queen seedlings update

LDBQ seedlings were deflasked in June, so they are just over 3 months old and they are growing really nicely. I think it is so far the most vigorous seedlings from all my deflaskings. It seems like very soon they will catch up with HDG that I deflasked in summer 2012.

Here is the picture:



I moved the larger ones from net pots to clay pots because roots started to come out from the net and weave around it. I already had this happening with HDG seedlings so badly that I had to cut the pot to free the roots. Now I decided to not wait that long.
Seedlings didn't mind moving and took off right away filling the wide clay pots with new roots.

What is different fromprevious phalaenopsis deflaskings? These guys went straight to orchid tank with t5 ho lights and constant temps and humidity (no trays with domes, no heating mats, no fuss) and, I guess, it is working.

Repotting paphs, again.

It became a real necessity because I noticed that I am rotting the roots in the Shultz bark mix they were currently growing. Of course most of them still have bunch of roots but comparing to the repotting pictures of plants when they got here - the root systems decreased quite significantly. It is all barks fault because I can never tell if it is dry or wet.
I would like to grow them in pure moss, but apparently paphs don't do good in sphagnum for the long run.
So, with help of knowledgeable folks on th Slipper Talk forum I created my own mix that has no bark whatsoever and contains the following ingredients: leca(clay pellets), chopped sphagnum moss, chc, perlite, chrcoal and coarse sand.
Here is how it looks like:



I really hope this will work.

Repotted paphs in the new media:

Paph. stonei: one week after deflasking

What's left of the paph. stonei seedlings - 16 plantlets in three compots.

Paph. stonei x sib ('Red Pouch' x 'The Best'):



Compot 1:



Compot 2:



Compot 3:



They don't look all that good, but I figure if they were to die - it would already happen after a week...