Whole bunch of new orchids

Well, ten new orchids to be more precise, came today from Cloud's. They are mostly from Cattleya alliance plus one Psychopsis seedling. I have ordered cattleyas to fill in space on my large sunny south-east window between the glass vases with vandas. I tried to pick minis or at least compact-sized species, but somehow lots of large ones made it through. Well, how can you resist for example Cattleya bicolor with those beautiful waxy flowers.
Anyways, for now, I think, I am all set with cattleyas, unless... Unless I come across something from my wish list.
Individual posts with photos dedicated to each chid will follow but for now - the group shot:

Three at the back are :
Bl. Mornng Glory,
B. Little Stars,
Bl. Aurora(the bonus plant).
Middle row plants:
Lc. Meadow Gold,
C. aurantiaca 'SVO' 4N x L. angereri 'Peter T.',
C. luteola,
C. tigrina,
C. bicolor
And two at the front are:
Lc. Love Knot 'Carmela's Blue' (coerulea type),
Psychopsis versteegiana
They all look nice and healthy. The moss is a bit too wet and smelly, but I am going to repot them into clay pots with chc and charcoal.

Phal fasciata bud

About two weeks ago I got Phalaenopsis fasciata 'Shaffers'. There were four spikes but no visible buds. Now there is definite growth on one of the spikes that looks like tiny bud.

Click here to compare with arrival picture.
I hope there will be flower soon!

Vanda Robert's Delight 'Garnet Beauty'

It is still in bloom after a month and I still go around with my camera...

I wonder how long the flowers will last.

Vanda bensonii or how to root vanda cuttings

Last spring I received several vanda cuttings with very little roots. I have planted them into small plastic pots with bark. After a while they started to decline and when I unpotted them to see what is going on - the existing roots and most of the stems covered in bark were rotting. One of them was large enough to have some stem left after I cut all the rotted parts.
It was Vanda bensonii cutting. I put it into vase as my other sedlings, and soon I noticed two small bumps appearing on the lower end of stem but leaves started to wrinkle very badly. Of course plant didn't have roots to supply leaves with water.
As the last resort I got creative and did the following. I broke the head off the plastic fork and stuck it through the round hole in the plastic 4-inch vanda basket. It fits that hole just perfect without moving, like a post.
Then I placed basket itself into 4-inch square plastic orchid pot, tied my vanda bensonii rootless cutting to the fork handle and threw in a handfull of coconut husk chips around the stem like this:


I placed it on the window beside my tiny Ascocentrum miniatum and Vanda coerulescens seedlings that live in the same arrangement (without fork though) and sprayed chc every morning with lukewarm water. After some while leaves plumped a bit, couple more month went by and yesterday I noticed a fat root nub on the stem above the medium level. I decided to see what is going on under chc and voila:

There are two fat roots, one started to branch and the third one on the way. Soon it will be ready for the glass vase. For being such a survivor Vanda bensonii is getting its label on my log today. Although it is its first appearance, I cannot log it under arrival, so I will enter it under HowTos since it does describe how to root vanda cutting...

Phalaenopsis seedlings

Earlier this summer I bought 8 small seedlings of different phalaenopsis species. They were unfortunate enough to get stuck in transition due to the stupid postal strike and got really overheated in the airless environment. Some parts of their foliage had unsightly yellow patches and with me being totally new to phal seedlings they had to go through several re-pottings as I couldn't make up my mind with regards to medium. Finally I stopped on sphagnum moss and here are some results.
Phal. violacea var. coerulea R.I.P.-ed almost instantly.
Phals amboinensis, violacea var. mentaway, tetraspis and lueddemanniana progressing well growing new leaf and/or new roots:


Phals gibbosa, parishii and panterina lost some old leaves and do nothing, except that parishii managed to get mealies into the growing point and had to go through whole wiping and isolation process:

I am starting to realize that small seedlings are probably not the best purchasing option and requires a lot of patience with orchids. At least now I am instinctively looking for b.s. or n.b.s. mark when searching for the plant I want.