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...