Good Life

Good Life has been a reliable flowering orchid for a while now. This year, I found that the flies love its fragrance and possible sap on some of its surface. The flies drives me crazy. Lovely plant. Can't wait for my other cattleyas to bloom.

Chia Lin Red Rose back bulbs rebud

This old back bulbs is putting out a new bud. Hopefully it will grow.

Feb 5th, 2008

Broke down and repotted Big Red a few days ago. I don't expect the flower bud to survive.

March 18th, 2008 update: The flower sheath dried up and the flower had shriveled up inside.

Pizzaz looks okay.

March 18th, 2008 update: I have not seen any activity in terms of growth.

The Recent Additions…

I hope it flowers.

I decided to just plant the Piazza into the pot and let it rot the rest of the roots and hope it will put out new ones.

Happy New Year 2008!!!

Just an update of my plants, above.

Incredible proof that if given a chance, Cattleyas can grow roots that are adapted to thrive in water. This Orchid is named "Good Life" and is one of few original plants I bought in Hawaii many years ago. It has grown into this big plant and has given me several blooms. This year it hasn't bloomed but that's because I transplanted it into this hydro-culture and it had to adjust.

Wider shot of 'Good Life'

Roots

Roots look good on this guy.

Roots seems to be slower growing than its clone sibling.

Shingfong Beauty 'Water Red' is growing new roots like gang-busters. Unfortunately, I think the flower sheath on this cattleya has died.

Repotted all my orchids.

Spent Friday and Saturday nights repotting all my orchids with Aussie-Gold and reused my Dyna-Rok.
I bought two bags from a place that I think is in Ohio. cost a lot but I wanted to spoil my orchids. At least I hope my orchids will like the new medium. I was happy to see the Dendrobium Thyrsiflorum had healthy roots. I was generally happy to see the roots doing well for the plants except a couple of my phalaenopsis. I'm sad to say the new plant I got from the grocery store is pretty much dead. it had rotted and the roots look like they're dead too. Don't know why the phalaenopsis aren't doing so well in the semi-hydro medium? The cattleya's, dendrobium, oncidium and even the tolumnia seem to like it. Anyway, the phals are in the new stuff now. I'll keep an eye on it.
I also spent much of the day building more acrylic boxes. got some scrap plastic from Tap Plastics and solvent, glue and more. I think I have a total of 10. they take about 20 minutes each to make.
My window sill looks pretty full.

Today's purchase

Today I bought a bunch of orchid supplies, Rand Aircone pots, Aussie gold and three new Cattleyas.

Jim Elmore 'Sweetheart'

Edisto 'Newberry'

Lc. Jalapa x Pot. Carolina Splendor
(This picture is not the flower I will be getting, I realized too late; oh well.)
I'll be getting a cross

Links:
http://www.fendersflora.com
http://www.gardeningwarehousedirect.com
http://www.arcadiaglasshouse.com

New Plants from eBay

Cattleya Blc. Hawaiian Passion

Phalaenopsis Spotted Deer 'KH6707' - I'm worried that this plant may not look like this.

Pot. Haw Yuan Gold 'YK#2'

This was a buy 3 get 1 free deal. Dendrobium - D Nill Mongkorn

My bay window… again.

Took this photo slightly over-exposed to get more detail in the plants. I also moved the smaller cattleya seedlings towards the front.

Odom's Sweetheart (Blc Toshie Aoki x Slc Wendy's Valentine) 'Red Beauty' 2

Lots of algae on the medium but I read its not bad. Using Physan 20 in my orchid spray should keep the algae in control. I hope the new growth means new roots; the shriveled back leaves means rotted roots.
The other plant seems to have three new growths but no new roots yet.

Three Cattleyas from eBay

Flowers I got from two ebay purchases:

Pot. Ching Hua Flame 'Red Rose'

Blc. Shinfong Luohyang 'Tian-Mu'

Blc. Lily Marie Almas 'MGR' the picture is for 'MAJ'

C Netrasiri Starbright X BLC Rattanakosin

This is my struggling seedling I got from ebay. I originally got two but one died. The picture below shows the parents of the seedling. I got the plant from Bill_Asia and he sends them bare rooted and almost dried out. The sample below is suppose to be average but the seedling you see above is tiny. Any rate, I hope it lives.

I found this tiny little guy attached to the yellow orchid, I guess its another 'Tian-Mu' with a single root. I hope it survives and grows.

These two guys are new Odom's Sweetheart 'Red Beauty' I got from orchids.com. The one in the back has a new shoot and the one in front under a plastic bag has, I think, three shoots. the only problem is their roots may have rotted away. The one in front definitely has no root system and I'm using the bag to keep the humidity around it high. the wrinkled leaves tell me that its using it's stored reserves to grow new shoots and hopefully new roots. Oh boy.

Kitchen Window Sill

I have two northeast kitchen window sills. This is where I place the rest of my orchids. As you can see I've used up all the space. Most of the pots here are empty; waiting for shipments of orchid to arrive and end up in them. I have 6 more plants so they'll get filled quickly. I've been using Dyna-rok II. the bottom of the pots are acrylic bases/reservoir that I made (thanks to tapplastics) to hold about an inch of water.

My dendrobium is putting out flower spikes; I was surprised as I thought it was going to die but low and behold, its also has new shoots.

These three guys, I got from ebay. The one in the middle is a yellow: Blc. Shinfong Luoyang 'Tian-Mu'. The one on the right is a red color: Pot. Ching Hua Flame 'Red Rose'. The left one is a red with yellow lip: Blc Lily Marie Almas 'MGR' (Orange Nugget x LC Jalapa). They're small, it'll be a while before they flower. Hope they don't die.

Mounted Cattleyas

This mounted guy is a cattleya named 'New City' and its a red color flower. I got it in Hawaii and it's the only cattleya that hasn't bloomed for me yet. I got four cuttings out of the original two plants when I was repotting. Three are on this plack and one is planted in a 6 inch pot in Aussie-Gold (and it's doing very well). New roots have grown and new shoots are out. Hurray, I hope it doesn't die. I mist it pretty much every day.

The purple cattleya here is doing well it looks like.

this is that mystery orchid. Its taken to the mount really well. at least 5 new shoots

More Cattleyas

This cute orange compact (maybe miniature) cattleya was purchased online. I was surprised that it was flowering when I got it. I really liked it but I didn't water it enough and it dried out. How tragic.

This Dendrobium is doing well; can't remember where I got it. I've had it flower for me many times and even though most of the leaves dropped off it's still flowering for me. I've this year transfered it to Aussie-Gold and its doing very well. I'm thinking I may have got it from a florist; along with a couple of orchids that had finished flowering and was on sale. I had a Miltonia that recovered and bloomed for me but I put it out in the sun and it burned to death.

I got this purple cattleya at a florist in Milpitas with my friend Rey. I bought two of them but only one gave me blooms like this pretty much every year. The other one I later found out, was struggling with it's crappy medium. I've since mounted them onto my "Cattleya Tree."

I got this guy in Hawaii as well. It's named 'Good Life' and growing it from seedling to this size and then flowering is very satisfying!

'Red Beauty' and purple cattleya. I guess this was taken before I watered the little red guy to death.

Cattleyas

This yellow cattleya was a mystery plant I bought at either a tourist spot or at the airport in Honolulu? I had hoped it would be a grand purple cattleya like the picture on the package but atlas, false marketing. This little guy is quite a prolific grower and many years later (2007), I've split it up into several cuttings and mounted them on a wooden plack. So far it's dong really well.

This is my "Cattleya Tree." The yellow cattleya is at the top left. I have mounted a purple on both the top right and bottom left. The bottom right is a red cattleya called 'New City', which is a plant I got also in Hawaii but it has never flowered for me… yet. ;-)