Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to all my lovely readers out there. I’m so thankful for you and your support!

I’m at my parents’ house in St. Louis, and my mom’s Brassavola nodosa that I wrote about a couple weeks ago is still in bloom. It has an incredibly strong gardenia scent at night!! Here are a couple fun Instagram pictures of it:

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I hope you all have a happy and safe holiday!

How to Recognize Orchid Roots and Orchid Spikes, Part Deux: Photos!

I’m finding that my post about how to identify whether you have an orchid spike or a root is my most viewed post by far. For example, just in the past week, my spike* vs. root post has been viewed nearly 6x as many times as my second most viewed post of the week. Clearly, “is it a root or is it a spike?” is a big question for new orchid owners!

So in the interest of helping orchid growers out even more, I decided to do another post on this topic, this time with LOTS of photo examples to help better illuminate what a root looks like and what a spike looks like. If you haven’t read my original post, I recommend doing so before you dive into this one. All the below photos are of orchids in my own collection. Because you’ll see more roots growing from your orchid than spikes, let’s begin with root pics:

Two roots emerging from the base of a Phalaenopsis
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BBG’s Blooming Tiger Orchid Makes it to the Press

Tiger Orchid at BBG

Today I noticed an article on Gothamist about the Tiger Orchid in bloom at the BBG. And then I went over to the BBG’s Garden News Blog and saw their post about it, along with some really nice photos of this monster orchid’s blooms. Their photographer snapped closeups of these giant flowers, which I failed to get during my visit last week.

According to the Gothamist article, the Grammatophyllum Speciosum gains 100 pounds when it is in bloom! Impressive. Now that was a bit of information that I didn’t know.

I think I’ve earned to the right to be smug and say that I was the first to blog about the BBG’s Tiger Orchid blooming. Just saying.  🙂

But seriously, go see the orchid. I know I’ve said this before. It’s really quite a sight to behold, and there are some other really beautiful orchids to be seen in the Aquatic House while you’re there visiting the Tiger. As I mentioned, winter weekday admission is free, and the Aquatic House (and the entire Conservatory in general) is a wonderful respite from grossy, chilly winter weather.

Edited to add: Commenter Stefano pointed out a gratuitous article about the orchid from today’s online Brooklyn Paper, too. Orchid growing isn’t like baseball or cycling, folks.

Grammatophyllum Speciosum Blooming at Brooklyn Botanic Garden and Other Wonderful Things

I had forgotten about Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s free winter weekday admission until I saw Brokelyn’s post about it earlier this week. So I made plans to go with my also-marginally-employed friend on Friday morning (random aside: we planned to meet at 11am on 11.11.11!). I’ve been in the mood to go see some orchids, and I was also thinking about how the Grammatophyllum speciosum (AKA the Tiger Orchid) was probably due to bloom soonish. You may remember that I featured this plant as an Orchid of the Week quite awhile back; it’s believed to be the largest type of orchid in the world!

When we got to the Aquatic House at the BBG, we marveled at some lovely Vandas for awhile before I realized that the Tiger Orchid was already in bloom!! This plant is a truly stunning monster:

The amazing Grammatophyllum speciosum in bloom
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Orchid of the Week: Brassavola Nodosa

I’m WAY overdue for an orchid of the week post—or any post, really. So sorry about that, folks! I hope you’ll forgive me for being totally MIA. This week’s featured orchid is inspired by my mom, who texted me a photo of her blooming Brassavola nodosa yesterday. So in honor of her good growing, this post is about the B. nodosa!

This orchid is native to Mexico, the West Indies, Venezuala, and Peru. It’s known as the “Lady of the Night” orchid because it is fragrant, but only in the evening. Some say its fragrance is citrusy and gardenia-like, which sounds rather lovely to me. Let’s have a look at some photos, shall we?

Photo credit: brassavolaorchids.com
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Orchid of the Week: Dendrobium Aggregatum

Surprise! Bet you thought you weren’t going to see an Orchid of the Week post today, didn’t you? This regular feature has totally fallen by the wayside lately, and for that I apologize. I’ve actually been busier with work over the past few weeks, and then last Friday I was out and about preparing for that hurricane thing that happened.

Anyway, this week I’m featuring another orchid from my own collection, the Dendrobium aggregatum. For the record, mine has not bloomed yet, but I’ve only had it for a few months. This orchid is a bright, cheery plant that can produce loads of yellow blooms:

Photo credit: David in SWGA, Flickr
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