Satisfaction!

   Well, it's been a week since Rejuvenation, and I really think this whole process has done a lot of positive for me, more than one would think possible after loosing an entire collection of plants, and after giving the plants and closet another spray today, I'm feeling even better.
   Although I only have a few pictures, Blogger mobile still won't let me post anything that has a picture in it, so while I am typing (most of) this on my phone, I'll have to add the picture via a computer, which means I'll also follow regular suit and include the pictures after the the post break, something I consider good etiquette.

   I think the one thing that affected me the most with the spider mite infestation was the fact that daily I had to look and see my failure. I had failed by not seeing these pests on a plant I bought in person, I had failed in trying to immediately identify and eliminate these pests, and most of all, I had failed in keeping my precious plants safe from harm. As I watched my plants slowly pining and dying away, I at times felt I had it coming, and I was simply learning the hard way. Hard way or not, I have learnt from this experience. I plan on being much more vigilant in the future, as I would hate to find out it was one of my plants that brought a devastating infestation into an unprepared person's collection. I do realise that no one can provide nor expect absolute perfection when they are selling or buying plants, but you can always try your hardest to prevent heartbreak for others and yourself.

   And for the pictures, but once again, more talking. Considering my poor memory, I remember a fair bit of an hour long phone conversation with Fred Clarke, an immensely knowledgeable man, breeder, and owner of Sunset Valley Orchids. This conversation happened approximately a year and a half ago, and the one thing that stuck out to me was his simple encouragement to be patient. Let's face it, it takes quite a long time to go from pollination to first flowering of a cross, but what he said was that once things get rolling, pretty soon I will always have something of my own about to come into bloom. Sure it may take four years from pollination to get a flower, but if I'm having a pod sown every six months, a few years down the road I'll have new crosses blooming out every six months. This, people, is something I look forward to, and something I get satisfaction from, knowing that I am already finished some of that first path.

   As some of you may already know from my last post, I received a flask of my Penang Girl, and I have germinated protocorms of (Rarashati Princess x I-Hsin George), and a recently sown flask of my (amboinsensis x Gelblieber). Today, in a bittersweet moment, I removed the pod off of my lifeless Gelblieber, and knowing that my sower is out of town, decided to open it up and take a look inside. I think it looks pretty solid, so here's hoping to fertility!

Here is the pod unopened sitting beside its tag for size.

And here is the pod split in half, with a TON of seed, hopefully all fertile.

   So, in addition to that, my Tying Shin Blue Jay also seems to be holding on to the first attempt at pollination, which makes me pretty happy, especially given the fact that I tried pollinating one of its parents (K.S. Purple Martin) that I had multiple times at various periods of flower age, all with near immediate failure, plus I had failure with my Purple Gem (which is half pulcherrima (x equestris) along with Tying Shin Blue Jay (x K. S. Purple Martin), all of which was bringing me to think I'd never have success with anything with pulcherrima in it, a species which has a lot of characteristics I like and would like to breed with.

Week old pod on my TSBJ, a cross others may think slighly unconventional ;) (a fully fertile, 2n cross, though)

   And, to finish it off, I have finally made an order with Patrick of Kingfisher Orchids, a person that if you are in Canada and enjoy Phalaenopsis, you should buy from, especially considering he has some great crosses of his own plus new imports from Taiwan.