Catasetum Fever

I really like Catasetums. I really like most of the species and many of the hybrids. They've fascinated me since the days of my first Jones and Scully orchid catalogues back in 1984. The images of Cstm. Orchidglade made my mouth water. But it was years before I actually grew a Catasetum. I ended up with two that were smallish and, as a bonus, semi-reliable bloomers. I was happy for many years.

Clowesetum Raymond Lerner

Ctsm atratum (I still think)

But then Fred Clarke and Sunset Valley Orchids came on the scene, and I longed for more. I hesitated. Most of those hybrid plants eventually become HUGE, especially the Ctsm pileatum hybrids. I don't have overhead space for plants that get even a foot tall. I continued to hesitate. Then the ever-inventive Mr. Clarke decided to try breeding MINI Catasetums. Oh no. I got one. It bloomed! (It's not doing so great right now, but I have hopes for its revival.)

Ctsm Karen Armstrong (Susan Fuchs x denticulatum) is a building block hybrid for the new minis SVO is creating. And creating, and creating. There are a lot of new hybrids available, and some are kind of meh and others are really exciting.

This spring, SVO had a big sale on their unbloomed seedlings in 3-inch pots. So I went in on a group order with friends, and I somehow (hah) ended up with five new Catasetum plants. Well, actually 4, since I ended up with two of one cross. Group orders tend to include surprises, after all. Some sell-outs, some extras.

Ctsm. Double Down (Ctsm. Chuck Taylor 'Wow' x Ctsm. kleberianum 'SVO) (2)

Ctsm.(Ctsm. gladiatorium 'SVO 35' x Ctsm. barbatum 'SVO' HCC/AOS)

Fredclarkeara (Mo. Painted Desert 'SVO' HCC/AOS x Ctsm. Alexa 'Good One')

Fredclarkeara (Mo. Painted Desert 'SVO' HCC/AOS x Ctsm. Karen Armstrong 'SVO')

Here they are, fresh out of the box.
And already sprouting!

Most of these babies were already developing new roots on the new shoots. Because I am an indoor grower with lousy humidity levels, I began watering them right away. Older pseudobulbs should not shrivel as the new growth expands, and if you don't water them enough that will happen. The plants won't grow as heartily as they should.

The popular wisdom is to keep these sprouting plants dry so their roots will hungrily seek moisture and grow rapidly, while the sprout lives off the water stored in the older bulbs. A very humid atmosphere helps keep the plants going. But honestly, in their native deciduous forests, substantial amounts of morning dew often soak the plants at this stage so I say the hell with pop wisdom and just water the damn things. Especially since I popped them out of their pots to check root growth, and I saw no issues, just lots of nice healthy white roots.

I did wait just a tad too long to actually repot them, but they didn't seem to mind.

The old tiny pots were completely packed with roots by now, and so I just popped them into bigger pots and filled in with seedling mix. Once they go dormant and the roots die back, I'll clean them up and repot them properly. Probably.

The first one to spike and bloom was this (gladiatorium x barbatum):

It's got spots and a fringy lip from both parents, not quite best of both (which are very similar) but pretty nice. It's a great flower count for a first-bloom seedling!

Two other people also had this cross bloom first. So it's a great choice for even beginners with this group of hybrids! That same plant pictured now has a second spike filled with buds. I'm seriously thrilled with it.

I'm curious to see if the Fredclarkeara hybrids will wait to spike until they've dropped their foliage, the way Mormodes species usually do. (I won't have long to wait for two of them, since uh, they were fiercely attacked by spider mites and my battle waged didn't prevent premature leaf drop.) 

I'm happy to have these plants doing fairly well...this summer has been a bummer for my plants overall. Mostly my fault, not watering sufficiently even though I started out well feeding and misting. I'm trying to make amends and see what the rest of summer holds.

Habenaria rhodochila, Superstar

I love love love love love terrestrial orchids. I've been growing several kinds for many years now. While it seems silly to "waste" precious indoor light garden space on plants that vanish entirely for half the year, it's not much sillier than growing other species that bloom sparingly. And for that half year underground, they're no trouble at all!

My pink Habenaria rhodochila has been very happy for the past six years, but I've never been thrilled by the flowers. They're wimpy. The color isn't bad, but the shape is blah -- too open, compared to others I've seen And no matter how close to the lights I put the developing new shoots each year, the plants end up stretched out. But it still blooms like crazy! And this year, the ever-growing tuber put up a whopping seven new growths, five of which bloomed! I really can't help but love the darn thing, even if those flowers only last a week. A WEEK. Well, having five spikes stretched the flowering period to about a month. But really.

Being nevertheless eager to expand my collection, I was happy to win a tiny plant of the orange form of the species at auction. It came from my friend Ron Midgett at New Earth Orchids, who has excellent taste in Habenarias. I figured it was a good bet the flowers  would be decent, but didn't expect any until 2016.

Surprise! The tiny plant grew and grew over the summer, and soon put up a spike with several buds. It took a long time for those buds to develop. Good? Bad? Neither? The stem is really straight, really sturdy. Then the buds started to open...

This plant's flowers aren't wimpy. They're amazing. And they've been open over two weeks already. I took the plant to work in a cereal box wrapped in plastic bags, then on an express bus for a trip to the Greater NY Orchid Society show table, and wow, not one sign of wilting yet. I hope they make it to the Manhattan Orchid Society show table next week!

Everyone wants to see it next year, when the plant is bigger. I just hope like all hell I don't somehow manage to kill it this winter...I'll be VERY careful once it settles in for its seasonal nap.

ADDENDUM: The flowers ended up lasting FIVE WEEKS. The plant is now (very early January) thinking about going dormant.

Maxillaria uncata

I have a deep love for miniature orchids, going back to my very first orchid explorations. Something about a complete organism being so small, so lovely, is absolutely irresistible. My first Maxillaria uncata was a tiny plant, a division of a friend's vigorous specimen. It bloomed several times before I managed to kill it. I got another, kinda small, and killed that too.

After over 20 years, I finally got another one! A huge mounted beast from Tom Nasser, sure to survive even my wonky conditions. I dealt with the issue of it being mounted by sticking the base in a decorative glass bowl on a hanging chain, and then hanging the whole business fairly close to the end of my tube lights.

I water it by half-filling the bowl; the tree-fern slab is soon saturated, and the moss around the root mass wicks moisture to the lowest growths which then drip daintily onto the sleeping terrestrials in a tray below. Not a great ecosystem, but it seems to work. Eventually those lowest growths rotted a few leaves, but the upper growths put out so many it hardly mattered. Being close to the lights, the plant stays warm, even in winter when the windows are open a bit or the steam heat fails to keep up with the changing seasons.

The adorable stripy flowers are pretty large, by my estimation.

Now if only Mystery Maxillaria (from a GNYOS raffle) would bloom...I would be 3 for 3 for blooming this genus in just one year!

Habenaria medusa: Year 2!

Deciduous terrestrial orchids are not for the anxious nor the impatient. They grow...they flower...and then they decline, collapse and vanish. Their proud green leaves yellow and wither. They look sad. But rather than  immediately nurture them  back to health, you have to be cruel: you have to neglect them for their own good, until they are once again ready to face the light and air.
(Not every terrestrial does this; a few are happy to bounce back and form new growths within weeks or even days of losing their previous growth. Two of my Stenoglottis sceptrodes hardly go dormant at all, forming new rosettes before the old ones are even yellow; a third one however decided to take a nice long rest before re-sprouting a couple of weeks ago.)
Habenarias cause much nail-biting and consternation. H. rhodochila is apparently notorious for being short-lived indoors, though friends of mine grow theirs into happy clumps loaded with flowers year after year. I expected H. medusa to be a drama queen too -- but no!
Last year, I planted two tubers and delighted in watching one grow to full-blooming magnificence. The second one grew leaves, and then the leaves rotted off at the base. Dooooomed! BUT NO. After many months of keeping both pots under close watch, watering sparingly every 10 days to prevent total dessication of the tubers (which is extremely necessary in my VERY DRY indoor conditions in winter), I was rewarded with both pots re-sprouting in March! I learned a lesson from last year, and moved both plants a bit closer to the lights, which resulted in good compact growth of the leaves. In April the stronger plant in the clay pot developed a spike, and in early June IT BLOOMED!
The flowers are now withered, having lasted about 10 days each (and surviving a trip to the MOS meeting). I shall soon cut the spike and allow the leaves to finish their job of strengthening the tuber for next year. The second plant, meanwhile, has budded and should be in bloom by the 1st week of July, I figure.
Silly me, I have no idea which one of the two was the one that rotted last year! Probably the one in plastic, that took a bit longer to sprout. Both have been watered and fed regularly (with MSU), and seem equally strong now. And so the cycle continues.

It Bloomed! Habenaria medusa BLOOMED!!

Well, I had 2 tubers sprout, but 1 conked out before it could spike -- I suspect overwatering.

However, the bigger healthier one went on to strut its stuff.

Naturally, the first flowers opened just before we left for a 4-day vacation! But when we returned, the plant and flowers had survived their time in the heat and dark (July, no a/c and no lights on while we're away). They all lasted about 10 days each. All of them opened. I am very thrilled indeed.

And now I am watching both empty little pots anxiously, dribbling water on their empty surfaces in hopes of maintaining the tubers til next year. Habenaria rhodochilia is still in leaf and will soon join them.

Shore Orchid Fest Purchases

Silva Orchids held a very fun and very welcome Orchid Festival a couple of weekends ago, inviting a bunch of other orchid vendors to share their territory for a weekend and enabling a lot of NY-NJ-CT-PA orchid folks to socialize and binge on awesome orchids.

I attended Sunday, the last day of the Fest, but still found plenty of nifty things to buy. I swore I could only buy very few plants because contrary to prior years' experience, hardly any of my recent purchases have perished. In fact most of my orchids are thriving, and many were recently moved up a pot size. This causes problems of course when your space really is finite. So I used the same trick I used at a few other sales: I brought a small (recycled plastic) Whole Foods bag that is excellent for orchid transportation (being thick, flat-bottomed and with longish handles), and intended to just fill it. Alas I forgot, once again, that this wonderful bag is infinitely expandable. I bought and bought and STILL had room...well it helped that the plants were mostly in 2- or 3-inch pots.

Spread out a bit, this haul fit in two plastic takeout tray/boxes, as seen above:

• Angraecum leonis (an old favorite, a nice healthy plant)
• Bulbophyllum frostii (could not resist another)
• Gastrochilus japonicus (currently in flower)
• Goodyeara pusilla (really gorgeous dark sparkly leaves)
• Holcoglossum subulifolium (Oak Hill, a huge plant for cheap!)
• Liparis bootanensis (a little underwhelming florally, but I may learn to love it)
• Liparis viridiflora (replaces one I had for many years but managed to kill)
• Macodes petula (yet another one...they are NOT the easiest jewels to maintain!)
• Oeceoclades maculata (yes I know it's a weed, but I don't care)
• Paphiopedilum purpuratum (Silva has a nice assortment of paph species)
• Paphiopedilum Yakushiji (malipoense x weshanense) (compact, in spike!)
• Phalaenopsis deliciosa (wanted one for years!)
• Pholidota chinensis (one of my VERY favorite species)
• Podochilus muricatus (I could not help myself but to get another...alas the one I got in March bit the dust)
• Tolumnia Genting Volcano (a nice dark pink)

Most of these new guys have found places more or less OK for them but a few are hanging out with some of the SEPOS plants that still haven't found exactly the right spot. I also have to pot the bare-root Liparis. And since the beginning of the year I managed to acquire a number of other plants as well...shall record them soon.

Pretty Red Orchids!

I still think this is Potinara Ching Hua Flame 'Red Rose' but still can't be 100% sure -- it might just be an SLC Jewel Box clone, but I don't think so. The plant is too compact and neatly upright, and not very big, and the flowers have much better substance. This NOID came from a raffle following the New York International Orchid Show; Kawamoto Orchids was a vendor, and they do carry this clone, and the picture and description match my plant pretty well. (The original price tag matched their price at the time too.)

This is the best set of blooms it's ever had! Being very close under the lights helps...gee, getting lots of water and food seems to help too, not to mention air circulation in hot weather. Frankly I'm amazed to get such red red red flowers in summer, when cool weather usually produces brighter reds.

Now if only the rest of my mini catts would get in line...

SEPOS/Longwood Gardens 2011: My purchases

Another fantastic orchid show come and gone. We spent 3 hours in a car to get there from NYC, anticipating the beautiful things we'd see. And what do my friends and I do first? Why hit the sales tent of course.

• Aerangis hyaloides -- an entire compot in flower!
• Anoectochilus burmannicus
• Anoectochilus albo-lineatus 
• Bromheadia brevifoli (mounted, adorable pointy green leaves)
• Bulbophyllum comingii
• Cynorkis fastigiata (I know, I know, it's a weed, go away)
• Dendrochilum javieri
• Dendrobium normandbyense
• Dend. tosaense
• Dend. Angel Baby (fantastic awesome hybrid, and covered in buds)
• Dend. Aussie Chip (another one, yes)
• Habenaria medusa (yes I've lost my mind)
• Podochilus muricatus (mounted, adorable rounded green leaves)
• Stenoglottis woodii (adorable fat little green leaves)
• (SLC Dream Cloud x BLC Love Sound)

About my usual ratio of species to hybrids, lately.
Once the shopping was done, I could begin the important business of taking lots and lots and lots of photographs. Lots and lots. Ooh, lots.

(All this happened in March, of course, and here I am only now remembering to finish & publish the post. So a few updates are going to overlap this...o well.)

Aerangis hyaloides

Miniature orchids don't get much cuter than Aerangis hyaloides. They are perfect scale miniature versions of larger more familiar species like A. biloba or A. citrata, and that of course increases their cuteness factor by many orders of magnitude.

When I saw compots of this species for sale by H&R Orchids at the SEPOS/Longwood show, for only $50, I flipped and immediately bought one. Not only were the plants all fantastically green and healthy, they were all in flower. Well not all. But nearly every one that was big enough had at least 1 spike and the pot was peppered with sweet crystalline white flowers.

Considering what individual blooming-size plants cost...yeah. No brainer. So today I finally took the compot apart, and ended up with a simply ridiculous number of mature plants and babies. 12 with spikes!! and another 10 that are nearly blooming size. I potted them in sphagnum moss in tiny plastic pots, for now. The biggest ones are solo, the next size are sharing pots in pairs; the tiniest ones got a new compot arrangement for now.

Having wonderful adorable little planties to trade or sell is a good thing! Now to find ideal spots for the big ones I'm actually keeping...

Anoectochilus albo-lineatus

Jewel orchids fill me with wonder. Even simple "ordinary" Ludisia discolor charms and amazes me with its beautiful deep velvety leaves sparkling with golden crystals.

Anoectochilus albolineatus is fairly small, I suppose, for a jewel orchid, and doesn't make many leaves before it flowers. There is nothing especially spectacular about its foliage -- as sparkly and lovely as it is, I wouldnt' be able to tell it apart from most other Anoectochilus-es at a glance. But when I spotted them for sale at the Longwood Gardens show -- at a mere $10 apiece!!!! -- I snapped up four of the little darlings. Each darling consisting of 2 tiny darlings -- so eight?

A couple of the growths were kind of limp, doubless due to the trauma of show transportation. Since drought = death to these delicate dainties, I had to figure out impromptu terraria for them. I stripped off the outer layers of sphagnum moss from their tiny root systems and carefully tucked them into clear plastic wine tumblers with a nice moist layer of fresh clean sphagnum. I covered them loosely with a little plastic wrap. The photo shows the result. (One was limper than the rest, and that one is in a larger plastic covered dish along with other plants needing a bit of spa treatment. It's perked up nicely.)

I remember a friend of mine once nursing along a tiny scrap of A. roxburghii, using fresh live sphagnum moss in a brandy snifter. Things kept nibbling at it, and finally it did rot away, but that high humidity did keep it going a long time. I appreciate the hardiness of Ludisias all the more, now.

Habenaria medusa, or Unbridled Optimism

I happen to love terrestrial orchids of all sorts, and lately have been making real efforts to grow more varieties. Modest success with fairly easy plants such as Ludisia discolor v. alba, Stenosarchos Vanguard and Stenoglottis sceptrodes is one thing; modest success with Habenaria rhodochila is a pleasant thing indeed. (I refuse to speak of my numerous attempts to cultivate Macodes petula. Suffice to say I will Try Try Again.) So I recently obtained two Habenaria medusa tubers with nice healthy sprouts. I love H. medusa. I have seen it alive and in person, and this is how it looks:

Or at any rate, this is how it looks when my friend Lenny grows it. This is another view of another plant grown by my friend Marc:

That is to say, when grown by people who know what they're doing. This, on the other hand, is what I have to work with:

I've potted them in the same mix in 2 different pots: Peat-Lite soil-less mix combined with seedling orchid mix (fir bark, perlite, charcoal) and scraps of osmunda (from a pretty old bag I kept around for nostalgia I guess). One is in plastic, one in clay.

Along with the other terrestrials I'll be tracking their progress pretty closely. I'd like to not screw these up...

Itty Bitty Baby Orchids

When one goes to orchid shows and one already grows orchids, one inevitably buys more orchids. I was again lucky enough to go to the Southeast Pennsylvania Orchid Society Show at Longwood Gardens in March. This time, however, due to new time obligations, I was able to-- rather, forced to -- skip the setup AND the early morning trip! Instead we spent about 4 hours there on Saturday.

I went into OMG THOUSANDS OF ORCHIDS!!!! mode, and went frantically about making 2 rounds of the show with two different lenses on my Sony a300 camera: first the 100mm macro lens for close-by flowers, then the 75-300mm macro zoom lens for everything else. Seriously loved using the zoom, as I was able to get really nice pics of plants waaaay in the back of the exhibits (and some of those bloody exhibits are like 10 feet deep), not to mention the miniatures on the floor and anything wired to a tree over my head.

I hate doing an orchid show rant since there are now so few, but here: I really HATE it when tiny flowers end up at ankle-level in a display. SMALL = EYE LEVEL. The BIG plants should go on the ground, where you can't miss them! Eensy-weensy mini-catts haven't a chance of being noticed or photographed or judged properly when you can't see them! Nobody sane would put a Masdevallia infracta on the floor, but plenty of displays put brachypetalum paphs there!

Nevertheless, I got plenty of satisfaction from the show, which was gorgeous and full of amazing and choice species and hybrids, and some very cool displays. And I got bagfuls of new planties. H&R alone, I went crazy. Will have some great recommendations up soon...

Any hope for this poor ugly flower?

Orchid people get very excited when a first-bloom seedling turns out even half-decent. Good color, good shape, good substance, these are all signs of hope for the next flowerings to be even better, when the plant is stronger and hitting its stride. Now and then a first-bloomer is so good you hope the next time it might even be award-quality.

Orchid people buy hybrid seedlings rather than clones because it's exciting to be the first on your block to see the results from a good hybrid. Sometimes all we ever see from a hybrid cross is one clone, maybe two, that hits the mass market because the original grower decided to bloom out the seedlings and pick the best early bloomers for themselves. Sometimes only a few plants from a cross are any good, and they never get cloned at all; we see them in the award pages, and none others.

If you have little space to spare on growing up unbloomed seedlings that may or may not turn out to be to your liking, then buying mature plants in flower, or mericlones of known quality, makes perfect sense. If you like the thrill of the chase, then compots and seedlings and near-blooming-size plants are right for you.

Well, you pays your money and you takes your chances. Way back in December I bought a bunch of cute baby mini catts from Carter & Holmes. One has bloomed! (Lc Mini Purple "Tamiami-4n" x Slc Precious Katie) surprised me, I had no idea it was even in bud and one day as I was watering the bottom shelf there was a bright purple flower!

Um...except that's the flower pictured above. It is a few days past its prime, the petals are wilting a bit, but overall even in its prime...bleah. The lip is nice and round, but the petals are dire, and the sepals...where the hell are the sepals?!? The two lower sepals are mere nubbins!

I am soft-hearted, and I will not discard the poor mite just yet. It's obviously an eager bloomer. I'll repot it when a new growth appears, and try and be more vigilant with water & food, and see if the next flowering is any improvement. After that...

More Orchidy Goodness

Never did rant on about the orchids I picked up at the very nice Deep Cut Orchid Show in February. I figure since I'm heading to the SEPOS Orchid Show at Longwood Gardens this week, I might as well take stock...

Goodaleara Eurostar (above) is pretty much my Ideal Notion of an Under-Lights Friendly Oncidium Alliance Hybrid. Shortish spikes, 2 spikes per growth, abundant flowers, short leaves, and extremely compact growth habit. 7 spikes in a 3-inch pot! Damn! The whole plant is only about 1 foot tall.

Paphiopedilum (Stone Lovely x In-Charm White) is pretty awesome. I've seen few In Charm hybrids I haven't coveted. Love love love the perfect egg-shaped greeny pouch! Love those spotty petals! And it's got slightly mottled leaves, with multiple growths, so here's hoping it's a piece of cake to keep going.

Also got a Phal Mini Mark of large size and vigorious spike from Parkside, I've been wanting one for years and just never did. Glad I waited. Got Maxillaria sanguinea, which is not complaining since shedding a few old leaves the first 2 weeks of captivity. No new growths yet.

Also got an interesting small hybrid Odcdm Bob Burr "Yellow Cat". Strange parentage: one half its tree is straightforward old-fashioned Odontoglossum breeding, with a shot of Oncidium crispum for seasoning, while the other half is Odcdm Tiger Butter + Odm. harryanum, one of the funkier and prettier Odontoglossum species. (Tiger Butter also boasts Onc. crispum as an ancestor, same generation.) The buds are quite yellow with a few brown/red spots, and growling nicely.

Two phals I got last year bit the dust. Boo. Worse, they suffered the same horrible top-down leaf death my older batches of phals used to succumb to. I fear for the babies on the other shelves. I'm trying to keep them happy and well-sprayed with water and soap. I'm also not going to buy any more phals this year until I'm sure the contagion is contained.

The Oeniella polystachys that I got from Cal-orchid in January bloomed a few weeks ago, and they were incredible. 5 flowers the size of chocolate chips filled the entire living room with a haunting fragrance similar to carnations.

Orchids Galore

The Carter & Holmes minicatts have all settled in nicely, though I still haven't found ideal spots for a couple of them. They're all making new roots and new growths, even the 2 dug-ups whose roots were a bit sparse and I had to pot in sphagnum moss. They like the moss. Whew. I stopped using sphagnum moss years ago for anything but sickly plants, but I might re-think that and start using it for minis again.

A few of us went to Silva Orchids in January for their open house, and as usual found some nifty things. Paph (argus x niveum) has 2 big healthy growths. I'm such a sucker for paph primaries. Paph (Pinocchio x armeniacum) is a real honey, not the best shape in the world but great color and it lasts a long time. (see above) I also got Coelogyne mossiae even though I'll probably kill it even before summer begins. Guest vendor Cal-Orchid had brilliant offerings, and I picked up a fantastic Oeniella polystachys in spike, and a robust Leptotes bicolor in bud.

And then, the Deep Cut Orchid Show and all its vendors and splendors...I'm still wondering just where everything will end up, but I'm very pleased with the goodies I scored.

Bulbophyllum Confusion

I'm sometimes sorry I'm such a sucker for species orchids. And bulbophyllums.

This charming plant above, that I have nurtured and coddled for at least seven years, has been all along mis-labelled. It claimed to be Bulbo. curtisii "Pololei" but it wasn't. After my struggle with the newer plant I got that turned out to be Bulbo. corolliferum (but is still called Cirrhopetalum curtisii in Siegerist's book), it was clear that this older plant and the newer are two quite different things. "Pololei" would appear to in fact be Bulbophyllum lepidum, also very common in cultivation. Except that Bulbo. lepidum is no longer that, it is now Cirrhopetalum flabellovernis, or was, if you want to look at it from the perspective of that name being the older one by 34 years or so.

All fine and well! But I have one other elder plant in this pool: a Bulbophyllum makoyanum that had failed to flower for the past five years out of six. It looks just like "Pololei" vegetatively. As I hadn't photographed the flower six years ago, I forgot what it looked like, except that it was yellow and daisy-shaped. I was entirely satisfied it was the plant as labelled. Silly me.

Responding well to improved care -- lots more water, and a boost closer to the light source -- my supposed B. makoyanum has flowered again. As I remembered, it's yellow and daisy-shaped. But it's not B. makoyanum. The flowers are too short. They're not rolled. What I've in fact got is another Cirrhopetalum flabellovernis, a yellow-er form than my other plant.

Sigh.

Well, I'll keep both. They're cute. I like them. But I seriously, seriously have to repot both too. They have never been repotted. I hate repotting bulbophyllums. I am going to use very shallow pots and fill them with bark and sphagnum moss and hope for the best...tomorrow.

Catasetum Success

So my encouragement post worked, and Catasetum atratum is blooming again! And this time I'm paying much better attention. After being open 2 days the 5 flowers are definitely fragrant, a sweet generic honey-like aroma. Dunno how I missed that before. I wish the flowers were better organized instead of pointing every which way, but with flowers this odd that's like complaining my cat only drives me crazy half the time.

I need to take the plant out of its plastic "pot" and snip away the dead oldest roots, maybe remove the very oldest pseudobulbs too. I'm quite pleased that this season's growth is one of the most robust yet.

Yay, New Orchids!!!

My "oh noes it's mid-December and my AOS 2-year renewal $30 coupon expires in January so I have to order now before the weather gets worse" orchids from Carter & Holmes arrived today. Soooooo happy! So here's what I got.

Bulbophyllum barbigerum (tiny plant) and Bulbophyllum frostii (bigger plant, bare-root). Whee! I last owned barbigerum years and years ago. Can't wait to see those wiggly little lips again! I'm entirely delighted to encourage seed-grown Bulbos being sold.

Stenocoryne vitellina seedling, nice and healthy, at least 1 year from blooming. For a brief glorious few months about 20 years ago, I was the Stenocoryne Queen of the East Coast. I had 4 species. Four! And they all bloomed and thrived until I had a wave of bad luck, and long vacations, that decimated my collection. I'm so pleased a large nursery like C&H is distributing these!

The rest is mini-catts, some are mericlones and some are seedlings:

Lc Tiny Treasure x Slc Angel Face. Ought to be a splash-petal cutie. Nice healthy plant too.

Lc Mini Purple "Tamiami-4n" x Slc Precious Katie. C&H says these are mostly purples, some are red.

Blc Waikiki Gold "Lea" x Laelia briegeri "Star of Brazil." L briegeri hybrids tend to be fantastic free-blooming darlings, so let's hope. It's a tall plant, as expected.

Slc Precious Stones x Slc Barefoot Mailman. These have to be gorgeous red-orange stars.

Potinara Brady Crocker (Pot. Mem. Shirley Moore x Slc. Precious Katie). Sounded good, and described as red, blooming on small plants.

Lctna Flying Colors "Mendenhall". My Otaara and other -tonia hybrids do well, time to try this. I guess I still have a weakness for splash petals.

Eplc Tinker Toy "Sprite." Always wanted one of these little pink & white cuties.

I got two bonus plants too, which totally rocks. One is (C loddigesii x Sc Beaufort), which I'm figuring will be pink and yellow. Heh. The other is a healthy young plant of Cattleya percivaliana. There is no way I can grow that thing to flowering maturity, so once I've potted it and established it some lucky pal of mine will end up with it.

Woot!

Woot! After a long dull stretch of inactivity, the orchids are starting up some winter cheer. 4 plants in bud! Woot!

Beallara Lembaba has a nice spike along with a new growth. Mystery Oncidium Hybrid that I got from Silva in March has budded beautifully, allaying my fears that the older slightly twisted growths were typical and would bollocks future blooming. The older speciment of Bulbophyllum curtisii "Pololei" has been flowering wonderfully ever since I boosted its light levels and been more careful about watering.

Phalaenopsis Tsay's Evergreen "Fangtastic" made my mouth water first time I saw it five years ago. I bought one in February, and I've been eagerly awaiting new flowers ever since. The flowers on the old spike lasted two months, with new ones forming every few weeks. Right now it's got 2 healthy spikes and two buds showing on the bigger one. I only wish the plant didn't look so craptastic, the leaves a bit mottled. I know I let it go too dry too often the past couple months. I'm being better now. I even fed it.

And, after disappointing me last year, Catasetum atratum is back on track, with a nice fat spike and five buds only a month late compared to past flowerings. I think I might have to "repot" it next year, trimming old roots and removing the very oldest pseudobulbs before replacing it in its happy home, the CD box. I refuse to mess with success. The older Catasetum on the window got a bit too dry this fall, and I don't think I'm seeing flowers again this year. I need to repot that sucker.

I need to repot like a dozen things. Mostly phals in those crappy flimsy clear plastic containers full of dank rotting sphagnum moss. Ugh. They're all making loads of new roots. Yay!

Cyclopogon lindleyanum

What a cutie this is! A miniature terrestrial "painted orchid" with pretty striped leaves (though this clone is nothing to compete with its Sarcoglottis neighbor in the pic).

Cyclopogon lindleyanum (or maybe C. lindleyanus? Google both and see which you prefer) is from Colombia and Ecuador. My friend who gifted me a potful keeps it in active growth year-round in moderate shade (about the same light as Ludisia), plenty of water, warm temperatures; his conditions include a cool period in spring and fall when he brings the plants in/out of the house. His assertion that it grows like a weed and flowers any time a growth matures might be justified by his having five large potfuls of it all grown from 1 he got just a couple of years ago.

I love love love the teeny flowers. So cute. And look how many buds remain unopened on that spike!

Several orchid nurseries offer 'Silver Screen' CHM/AOS which has very pretty striped silver leaves. I have hopes my clump will become prettier being kept under lights...slugbait likely does nothing for its beauty.