C. longipes

Last plant to post and then I can start doing updates! This is also a plant that I received from my orchid society friend. I'm glad he was willing to part with a division, as I'm really desperate for more rupicolous type Laelias. This plant is commonly known as Laelia lucasiana, but it is now Cattleya longipes.

C. sincorana

   Last plant from the show. On a last minute whim, I decided to ask my friend to pick up a rupicolous type Laelia for me. She managed to pick up a C. sincorana, so I'm hoping it likes its new home and blooms for me soon. Each new p'bulb has been getting slightly larger than the last, so I'm hoping the next one is the one that blooms.

Epi. Panama Ruby

   As I've been planning on doing some breeding within the Laeliinae, not only have I been searching for quality plants, but also plants with unique merit. I'm always looking to create the unusual, so of course I turn my eye to the lesser used Epidendrum and Encyclia. As far as I can tell, this plant has four canes at varying stages of development. I've seen online that the one parent, Epi. medusae grows it's canes to lengths of about 16", whereas Epi. porpax grows canes about 3" long. So we'll see how long mature canes get. It came with it's root ball wrapped in sphagnum, and upon mounting, I realised that there was a small separate piece in with the larger plant.

E. cordigera

   And the fourth plant I picked up from my friend is a near mature sized E. cordigera 'Pink Lip'. It doesn't look like this newest growth is going to bloom, unless I'm mistaken on it's blooming schedule, but I guess we'll see. It also seems to have started a small new lead off of one of the older p'bulbs.

Epi. Lovely Valley

   Another new type for me from my friend. This is a complex reed-stem Epidendrum hybrid that has adorable pink flowers.

C. (caulescens x pumila)

   Well, this is another that I received in the first batch AD 2015. It was connected in one piece, but it had grown in two separate ways, so I split it when I last repotted it. When I first got it, I had nothing besides sphagnum, so that's what it went into for a while. One of the leads actually had buds, but I wasn't watering it enough and they blasted. Now I have them in a mix of small bark, medium bark, medium charcoal, and sphagnum moss. The naming on this was a bit confusing, because it came as L. (mantiqueirae x pumila v. alba). I looked up the mantiqueirae, and I came up with Soph. mantiqueirae, which didn't match the parent in the images provided by the breeder. So I found out that since both Laelia and Sophronitis have been sunk into Cattleya, L. mantiqueirae became C. caulescens and Soph. mantiqueirae became C. mantiqueirae. Confusing, right?

Guaricattonia Lawless Gloriana 'Yellow'

YAY!!! In the past few weeks my Gct. Lawless Gloriana 'Yellow' has been fattening its sheath! Just in the past couple of days, the sheath split, so I felt it was sufficiently safe enough to peel it away (flash-backs of my Loddiaca 'accident' still present).

From the looks of it, I am going to be getting three buds from this spike.

Some blooms

Well, as stated just previously, I haven't updated this blog/journal in a while, so these have been open for a while. First is my Phal. tetraspis 'C#1' (or speciosa var. christiana) that had made three buds, but one blasted early on. It also has another spike beginning!!! I just love how vigourous this plant is!

Here it is with a .  .  . geometry tool.  .  . that has a ruler on it to help with size scaling. Since you can't really see the measurements, its slightly longer than 15cm. (I am going to try to incorporate this into all my plant shots, and probably flower shots too).

And, here is an attempt at a semi-professional picture with our lame point-and-shoot. It is interesting to note that now it is blooming in the winter, the flowers are all white. Compared to it blooming in the heat of summer (literally), I was getting flowers that had much more red on them. With a difference of the day temps being around 7-9C* from summer to winter, its interesting to see how much temperature affects the colour of the blooms on this little guy.

(I just measured and the flower is about 4cm. NS)

Here is the first to open Grand Stars #2 bud to begin to open with aforementioned.  .  . geometry thingy.

And here is a semi-professional attempt to get a good shot of the flower.

Approx NS of 25cm.

More Spike Progress!

My Onc. Gold Dust is getting closer to blooming! The previous p'bulb also started a new growth.

And finally, my B. Grand Stars '#2'. It is really close to opening, I think maybe within a week or so.

Some spikes coming along.

WOW!!! I haven't posted anything in a LOONG time! Well, I am going to make up for it. I have a ton in spike right now, so here is just a small sampling. (These two pictures are from a few weeks ago.)

So here is the one spike on my B. Grand Stars '#2'. Unfortunately, the large budded spike it had when I bought it yellowed before blooming, this spike is quickly growing to take its' place. There is one other lead that I am hoping will spike, as it is the lead after the p'bulb that had the first spike.

YAY!!! This Phal. Mambo that I bought from Paramount a while back had a spike on it, but it had sat there doing nothing until it eventually yellowed and died. I am surprised at the finding of a spike because I thought both the parents, Phal. amboinensis and Phal. mannii are summer bloomers, seeing that they are the waxy novelties. But it turns out that the amboinensis is a late winter bloomer, so I guess it makes sense . . .

Cattleya porphyroglossa

This is yet another one I am excited to see blooming, Cattleya porphyroglossa. This 'chid can get p'bulbs a whopping 60 cm (2') tall, with several 7.5 cm (3"), fragrant flowers. Since I had originally bought the larger epiweb slab for the now dead Blc. Yellow Buttons, I decided to mount this little guy on it.

Here is the whole plant, with the largest p'bulb is about 5 cm (2.5") tall. It has two new growths, one that is a good while developed, and another just starting.

Here is the whole mount with plenty of room to grow in the future.

A close-up of the new growth.

And the back of the mount with a thin layer of sphag. This is the keep a little bit of moisture without having it around the roots.

Cattleya quadricolor

Ohh, this is one I am excited for! Cattleya quadricolor  (syn. C. chocoensis) is supposed to get very large, and have around three 17.5 cm (7") flowers! Unfortunately, its' roots were dead, so it will get set back a bit, but this gives me the perfect opportunity to try semi-hydroponics. If it had any roots, they would have rotted in the semi-hydro set up anyways.

Here is the plant. Four p'bulbs, tallest one has about a 7.5 cm (3") p'bulb and a 15 cm (6") leaf.

Guaricattonia Wataru Kimura

This is one I am really excited to see bloom! This is a cross between two primary hybrids, so the parentage is [(C. bicolor x Bro. sanguinea) x (C. guttata x Gur. aurantiaca)]. This is supposed to look like the famous Ctna. Why Not, but richer and deeper colours. This is a massive 'chid (relative to the rest of my collection), and it even has two sheaths!

Here is the whole plant.

And the one sheath that is just starting to split open and show the spike!

I am totally going to do breeding with this one! I have had several different types of pollen donated to me from a few different people, and I want to do the following crosses: x Blc. Victoria 'Blue Bird' and x Laelia rubescens aurea.

Mounted Encyclia gracilis.

Okay, so among my OS purchases, I bought a small piece of epiweb for my Encyclia gracilis. Upon unpotting it, I found that it was actually two pieces of two p'bulbs. I ended up mounting it upwards, because that is the position it best sat in.

Here is some close-ups of the p'bulbs.

And the whole plant on its' mount.

My OS haul!

So, this last Sunday, Monica du Wit visited my OS, and she brought TONS of 'chids for sale. In reality, none of the plants there were from her personal collection. She is training to become an AOS judge, which is a purely voluntary process that can take around 6 or seven years to complete. So, people she knows donate plants for her to sell, and the proceeds go to her training. I am just going to post the one picture of everything, and do a separate post for each.

Mounted C. forbesii

YAY!!! All three pieces of Cattleya forbesii are finally starting to show some growth!

Here is the one piece that started growing as soon as it was mounted, and it has a total of four roots on it that are happily trailing along the cork.

Here is the smaller three p'bulb division that is working on one new root, and I think a new growth too.

And finally, the largest of the three pieces, which took the longest to do anything. There is two roots that I can clearly see in this picture, and there is a total of six new root-tips, and I am hoping for a couple others.

I am excited for the roots to grow and attach themselves everywhere, because I really want to get rid of the dumb looking white thread.

Things are growing.

Yay!!! My Ang. didieri is finally doing something!

You should be able to see a few root-tips hidden around the sphag and leaves, and a new leaf. It hasn't done any in the leaf department since I have bought it, so I am excited to see it.

My Phal. lobbii with its' spike ever so slowly growing.

And, probably the highlight of my closet!

I know it doesn't look like much, but my Ctt. Jeweler's Gem (Ctt. Chit Chat x Soph. coccinea) has FINALLY started to show signs of blooming. This sheath has been there for a month or so, but in the past week, it has slowly been fattening! Not only is this sheath working on buds, but I have another sheath!!!

I AM SOO EXCITED!!! And, here is a teaser of what I am expecting!

The blooms were about an 1" NS (natural spread, or horizontal length), without any fragrance. Since this was the first blooming, the flower count was low, but due to the one side of the parentage, I am expecting a much better bloom count.

Laelianthe Meadow Gold

Ugh, the one plant that I wanted to keep as one and not divide out of all the ones I have repotted, and this one just happens to be three separate 'chids! Oh well, just another reason to love Cloud's, you usually end up getting more that one 'chid in a pot, so you have extra to trade!!!

A piece for me!

A piece to trade! This one just finished working on its' third p'bulb, which was just sending out four new roots when I repotted it.

Oh, what's this? Another piece to trade! :D This one is almost finished its' third growth

And here is all three happily potted up!

    Now, looks can be deceiving, as these three 'chids are not potted in all sphagnum. They are all potted in a mixture of CHC and chopped sphagnum, since they were originally potted in straight sphag, I didn't want to shock the roots too bad with a repot straight into CHC. The largest piece, which I am keeping, has the largest ratio of CHC/sphag, and there is a greater amount of sphag in the next largest one in the middle, and yet a greater amount of sphag in the smallest one on the right. The one thing I love about this species is that it grows ridiculously faster than either of the species parents, which are (L. anceps x Gur. aurantiaca).
    Now, in case your first meeting with IOSPE was in my last post, I thought I would explain it here. The Internet Orchid Species Photo Encyclopedia is a website that contains a pretty good amount of info about a good chunk of orchid species out there. From now on, I think it would be a great idea that when it comes to species or primary hybrids I am offering for trade, I will put a link to the species or parents of that particular 'chid in question. So in this case it would be, (L. anceps x Gur. aurantiaca). Sorry for the long-windedness, but I don't want to leave you all in the dark!

Brassavola Grand Stars '#1'

I hope I hope I hope I hope I SO hope that this is the beginnings of a spike!!! As you've seen in my last post, I unmounted my B. Grand Stars '#1', and this is what I found on the larger division! I will keep you all updated!

So, after unmounting my B. Grand Stars '#1', I knew I would totally be out of room, and have nowhere to put three other pots, so I came up with a brilliant idea. I put a nail into each of the back two legs of my plant stand, and then I took some of that yellow string thread stuff and tied it to each end. I then poked some holes into the pots, and threaded the yellow string through it, and tied it to twist-tie hooks. Now, not only do I have room for these mounted and potted 'chids, but I will also have room for new 'chids I plan on buying at my next OS meeting! Ahh, I love a happy ending.

Dividing, Remounting and Potting, Oh My!

Did you know I just love the look of mounted orchids? The Brassavola Grand Stars '#1' you see mounted was the first orchid I ever mounted, so I didn't really get it on properly. Because of this, each new growth decided to go further and further away from the mount, and they actually started to turn around and send new growths away from the mount. Because of this, I decided to unmount the Brassavola, and divide and pot it up.

I was just going to make it two pieces, as it split way in the back, but because the roots were really tangled, I had to cut the back portion off, which left me with three four p'bulb pieces.

I potted them into CHC, and put a thin layer of sphag on top just to help with new roots. Come spring, I can sell or trade two of the divisions.

Here is my Bulb. Meen Legend Jewel in its' pot beside the mount the Brassavola was on.

Here is a quick shot of the crazy roots that were on this thing, and this was after I trimmed a bunch so I could fit it on the mount.

Here is a piece that wouldn't really fit on to the mount, so I cut it off and potted it separately. I will trade it come spring.

And finally, here is everything afterwards, all nicely mounted and potted up. The Bulbo conformed perfectly to the mount, which made it SO easy to mount!