Phalaenopsis mannii 'black'

I got this one from Kingfishers too, still trying to follow my original idea of collecting all phalaenopsis species. Also I really like the shape and waxy appearance of the blooms on mannii, cornu-cervi and such.

Phal. mannii 'black' looks nice and healthy, although probably a bit too young to bloom now:



Hope I can keep and grow it nicely.

Paphiopedilum sanderianum

Seedling of Paph. sanderianum that I have since April:



Here is the picture of it when purchased.
Since then it put up some growth and is still alive. Although the growing is very slow and I have no idea how many more years is it away from blooming.
I noticed some growing root tips in the pot:



That's a good sign.

Phalaenopsis bellina 'Chen'

Yet one more bellina joined my collection a while ago. Phalaenopsis bellina 'Chen':



I got it from Kingfisher Orchids in the beginning of summer. The plant is quite small but has healthy roots, hopefully it will establish well. I potted it into bark in plastic cup with holes at the bottom and sides. I made lots of such "pots" when moving my phals from moss to bark.

Phalaenopsis deliciosa

I have had this plant for a while.
From the beginning it had some problem with one of the leaves and it came down almost to the crown so I was pretty sure plant was a goner. I didn't throw it away only because it is kind of hard-to-find species, so I just left it be.

At some point problem stopped and plant was just standing there looking non-pretty.
Recently I noticed some positive activity - a new leaf and a new root:



So, I guess, this is a belated introduction. The name on the plant stated deliciosa yellow, but there is no var. yellow in the deliciosa family. However from the description of the var. hookeriana I think it might be it. Therefore I am going to log it under the name Phal. deliciosa var. hookeriana for now.

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.

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 coerulea

The blue vanda species - Vanda coerulea. It doesn't need to grow huge to flower, my plant is blooming sized:



It does need however to grow some new roots.

Vanda coerulea is relatively slow growing species and might put out just one set of new leaves through the season.

Tolerant of colder temps it can withstand down to 5-10 C - just goes dormant and stops the growing.

I read somewhere that it needs temperature drops to induce blooms and hope to achieve it by placing plant on the windowsil closer to window glass during freezing winter times.
We shall see if it works.

Phalaenopsis amboinensis var. yellow

Looks like Phal. amboinensis var.yellow had pretty tough times before it got here. Roots are rotted, leaves are damaged in several places. I wasn't sure if I should waste my time with it or no.



Since it is a var. yellow that you don't see very often, I decided to give it a chance. I have potted it into smallest clay pot with sphagnum moss and just let it be, watering when moss becomes crusty dry.
Now there are some new roots and maybe it will survive after all:

Paphiopedilum purpuratum

This is a new fan growing on Paphiopedilum purpuratum.



Main plant was having some rot problems from the beginning where I was cutting brown piece of the leaf then the edge would get brown again, I would cut more, it'd get brown more. I was ready to throw away the whole thing when I noticed a small nubbing of new fan. Now it grew to this size, so I decided to log the plant in.
Here are the remains of the main plant - two brown pieces:



There are also two more new green entities(future fans or roots, I don't know yet) down at the base, they prevent me from trying to cut off the old brown pieces.

Now, the new fan has some brown edging on the bottom leaf too, so I might still end up throwing the whole thing away, but not just yet.

Phal. bellina 'blue' x sib.

Even though plant is very small and has damage on the newest leaf - I am very excitied about this little seedling.
Not only is it bellina, but a BLUE bellina.



The hole in the leaf looks like some slug damage, I can tell because I had the same hole on my masdie and found a slug in the pot.



Yellow bottom leaf is hopefully just a normal aging process when old seedling leaves just shed away. Two new roots look promising, hope they will continue to grow.

Vanda insignis

Mature plant of Vanda insignis potted into sphagnum moss...




No, don't worry, it is not sphagnum moss all the way to the bottom.
I actually found this method of potting vandas here.
I thought it would work for me because while my seedlings in small pots are fine with chc - this vanda has pretty wide spread roots that require large pot. Chc in that pot would probably dry forever, so I did as described in the post I mentioned above.

Curled the roots into pot and placed bunch of small net plastic pots in between:



Put a layer of sphagnum moss to top it up:



Now I need to make sure it dries up in about 3 to 4 days, that's how often I water my other vandas in chc and they like it.

Phal. violacea alba II

Second plant of Phalaenopsis violacea var. alba. It is smaller than the other one and had some leaf problem.
It seems ok now, so I am logging it in:

Laelia tenebrosa II

Laelia tenebrosa is the last one from the cattleya batch that I got from Clouds. I know, it can grow pretty large and I already have small tiny seedlings of this species, but it was pretty hard to pass an opportunity to get larger sized plant(it was listed as large seedling) that might flower sooner so I would be able to enjoy blooms in this life.
Since I usually try to buy mostly smallish species, I think I will be able to squeeze this large laelia in between vandas on my sunny window.



There are four pseudobulbs, bunch of nice roots, leaves are freshly green. I moved plant from plastic pot with bark mix to my preferred clay pot with chc.

Phalaenopsis bellina III

Yes, yet one more Phal. bellina. I got it in the summer with an old spike and ugly yellowing bottom leaf.
Was hoping that spike will activate and produce a bloom for me, but no.
All it did since arrival - shedded ugly yellow leaf (with my help).
No new roots, not any sign of growing, nothing.



Well, I guess it is still adjusting. Hopefully there will be some activity soon.
I now have 4 bellinas.

Laelia alaorii

Laelia alaorii was a travelling companion for my Cattleya schilleriana. It is a small species but it is also a small seedling of the small species which makes it practically microscopic.
It is mounted onto piece of wood:



The wood piece is very small too but of course it looks gigantic comparing to laelia.
Here is the closer look of the plant:



I would rather grow it potted but am afraid to break it when taking off the mount -it looks so fragile.
I really hope it survives and grows a bit so I wouldn't be so scared to handle it.

Dendrobium cochliodes

I am not a big fan of dendrobiums, probably because they associate with the view of the leafless canes to me. I like when plants look neat even without flowers.
Despite that I did have one dendro - noId from discount shelf, that does grow - probably because I don't fuss much with it.
Lately I became interested in the antelope dendrobiums and even purchased small antennatum seedling from Ecuagenera, but promptly killed it because it was very weak from beginning with started rot in place.
Now I got hold of three small seedlings of Dendrobium cochliodes. It is claimed to be hot to warm grower with medium to high light, which I should be able to provide in my indoors or orchidarium (when I get it).



I never saw the flowers in person, but found pictures on the web, they look spectacular.
Seedlings appear pretty strong, have some viable roots, hopefully they will survive.
Since my noID grows nicely in chc, I have potted the new babies the same way - clay pots with chc.

Cattleya schilleriana

For some reason I always order catts from Clouds in the fall. This year I just randomly looked through their catalogue and found catt. schilleriana listed there. I wanted it for a while and decided to get one even though it is just a seedling.
Naturally it had to have a travelling companion(actually three), so I got four cattleyas.
Here is the one that is responsible for the whole order - Cattleya schilleriana:



I like ordering from Clouds, their plants are always extremely healthy and something listed as medium seedling usually looks substantial enough to pass for a large one.

Cattleya schilleriana is a small sized fragrant catt. that originated from Brasil. You can see the bloom picture here.
On the website about orchid species its synonym listed as C. aclandiae var. schilleriana. So, I guess my schilleriana is a close relative of aclandiae - another small fragrant cattleya I would like to get, especially the coerulea var.
Leaves are a bit dark comparing to my other cattleyas and, I checked, they are supposed to have red tinge on the underside.

My plant came potted into plastic pot with moss - road to death for any cattleya under my care, so I repotted it into clay pot with chc right away.

Hopefully it will adjust to the new conditions without problems.

Cattleya araguaiensis II

Yet one more attempt to have Cattleya araguaiensis. The small seedling I have already will take ages to recover and some more ages to grow to blooming size. This one is already adult plant.



There is even a new pseudobulb starting, hopefully it will bloom when mature.

Every Catt. araguaiensis I tried to buy(and this one is the third one) had some black and brown patches on the leaves. I mean, there should be a way to grow cattleya with nice foliage so it doesn't look like cr*p when out of bloom.

Phalaenopsis lueddemanniana II

I already had one - very small seedling growing very slowly. This lueddemanniana is a mature plant with three old spikes:



Foloiage is not in perfect shape, but new leaf grows healthy and there are few nice roots. Also one spike - top left on the picture, activated one node and grows this:



I am guessing it will be a new branch on the spike, so there might be blooms soon.

Phalaenopsis violacea 'red'

Here are the small seedling and the tiny seedling of Phal. violacea 'red'.



The little one dropped out of the moss where the main seedling was wrapped. I assumed - it is the same type.
Maybe not. If it survives, in many years, I might find out.
I bought the seedling against my rule of only mature plants again because you don't see that many of violacea 'red' mature plants for sale here and I have this idea of collecting all types of violacea and bellina.
So, it was a legitimate purchase in some way.