Orchids for everyone!

Tonight I scored an Oncidium species from the raffle at the Malihini Orchid Society meeting. I seem to have already lost the tag in the span of 5 minutes, but I do believe it's an Onc. sphacelatum. Hopefully the tag turns up in the car. Or in my lap. That would be nice.

Anyway, the plant is HUGE. The pseudobulbs are oblong, about 4 inches high, and the leaves are blade-like, about a foot or more long. The inflorescences themselves (there are 2 of them) are branched and are sporting at least 50 blooms. The plant is tall, so tall in fact that it might have to live outside or on a plant stand on my floor, as it cannot live perched on a dresser like the other orchids.

Tonight's speaker was David Sorokowsky, speaking on the delightful little things that are Sarcochilus. Predominantly white, red, or white with red splotches, there are attempts to bring out browns, blues, and yellows. They're quite adorable! Sarcochilus species themselves are native to Australia and are cool/cold growing orchids, tolerating lows to 30F and wilting in anything above 80F. Hybrid vigor allows for a wider tolerance range, but I would still not want to chance these picky fellers in anywhere but San Francisco, or a heavily controlled greenhouse setting.

Watering

This will be the first summer my plants will experience with an educated me. I know that this is the growing season for all/most of my plants and have been heavily fertilizing them. I use a 20-10-20 orchid fertilizer, diluted from anywhere to 1/10th - 1/2 of the concentration (1 tablespoon/1 gallon) for daily use. I keep it in a spray bottle for easy surface/foliar application, and just spray until the top bark looks fairly damp. Since it is pretty hot, I do mist and water daily, as the bark medium does not hold as much water as sphagnum moss.

The way I water my plants doesn't require any soaking, as I've seen other people do. Not usually, at least. I just pour the water in, allow it to drain out, and hope the plant stays happy. It's not strictly scientific or even a good judge of wetness, nor an efficient method, but my babies are still alive...

Repotting

I have this nasty habit of death, destruction, and splitting of orchid rhizomes during the repot process. Part of me just thinks 'oh, whatever lives through this will live forever'. However, a larger plant is usually a healthier plant, and splitting should only be done to keep the plant in check. Today's endeavor was to repot 2 Cymbidiums that were overdue for a repotting, and thankfully I didn't maim (maybe a little, but don't tell anyone...) or split any of the backbulbs off. There were new leads growing from the old, established bulbs on both and hopefully in my packing of bark, they weren't harmed.

The Epidendrum I split didn't fare as kindly however. It looked something like the first picture before I came and hacked it up. In my infinite wisdom, I did not plan ahead for repotting more than the Cymbidiums, so I ran out of bark. Running out of time and rather annoyed with myself, I just decided to just throw most of the divisions I so gently created back into the same pot. Whoops. See the second picture and guess how many divisions are in each pot. Hint, each division was about 2 canes big. Le sigh.

And a happy pre-Fourth of July to you Americans, and a pleasant Damn Those Colonists To Hell to you Brits. :)

Santa Barbara Orchid Fair

http://orchidfair.com/

Tempted to go, but that's pretty damn far from home. :(

Orchid observations

Just saw that my Miltonia/Miltoniopsis has a spike! How exciting!

Musings

You know what's worse than a Pop Tart? The edges of the Pop Tart that don't have any merit (frosting, filling) to them.

Summertime!

The best part about neglecting your plants is finding massive amounts of growth and/or beginnings of inflorescences. I love the growing season!

The Den. kingianum I have has been relatively quiet and unhappy the past few months, and I haven't been looking very closely at its pot. I now see 5-7 thick, purple stalks coming from out of the soil. They appear to be new canes forming, which is VERY exciting. While people say this species is stupidly easy to grow, I can try defying expectations and status quo by killing anything with chlorophyll in its veins.

I thought I had actually updated recently with an entry regarding the orchid shows/meetings/etc., but it seems that was simply a dream/imagination/misremembered fact. So let's try making this blog as precise, succinct, and informative as possible, shall we?

I bought a Phragmipedium Calurum back in March from someone trying to clear space in his greenhouse. This plant was MONSTROUS, and confined to a 5-6" pot. I split it into 7 or so divisions, and 6 of them are in various states of happiness/decline. I burnt the 7th in a west-facing window (don't ask...), and just tossed it. However there are new growths in each of the divisions so I must be doing something right!

Ludisia discolors are not my friend. I will keep trying, but the cuttings in water are doing the best of all the specimens I have currently.

My collection is starting to move towards Dendrobiums it appears. Huzzah for diversity!

The collection has now expanded such that I now require a spreadsheet to keep track of names, dates, and other details of my plants. There are currently 21 unique items in the file, not counting duplicate cuttings/split plants. Whoops, I forgot a NoID cymbidium in there. Thank you for helping me remember. :p

San Jose Orchid Exposition (June 3-5, 2011):

Selling, rather than showing, orchids in the heart of San Jose's Japantown. Andy's Orchids was there with a fantastic display of species, Cal-Orchids, a couple people who sell Neofinitia falcata and Sedirea japonica, and other Japanese orchids. Ridiculous prices on the latter, understandable prices on the former. I came away with two plants against my will (I brought no cash to the event on purpose, then saw a plant I wanted, found out there was a $30 credit card minimum and did some browsing...). The tag said 'Epi Mable Kanda' on the first, but I later figured out that it is now classified as an Epicyclia, and the name should be Mabel Kanda. It's lightly fragrant and has a very tall, branched inflorescence with tiny green flowers.

The other plant was a Den. aberrans x eximium. No flowers, a few new growths on it. I hope I can keep it alive. I'm not 100% on the culture required, but it seems to be potted in medium that doesn't hold water very well, so I'm misting/fertilizing daily. Looking forward to the day--if it lives, of course--that it graces me with the supposedly white flowers the picture next to it displayed.

Malihini Orchid Society weekly meetings (every second Friday of the month):

They're fun. I've missed the past couple months because I'm always coincidentally busy those weekends.

Did you know that you should do trial runs of greenhouses? Else if it gets to say, 150F, the plants inside will die? YEAH, I SHOULD HAVE FIGURED THAT ONE OUT RIGHT? :/