A Very Belated Update: My Orchids, and Visiting Orchid Farms

It’s been way, way too long since I last updated this blog and for that I apologize. I’ve actually been traveling quite a bit this summer: Puerto Rico, San Diego, Minneapolis, and most recently, LA and Santa Barbara. But I’m finally getting settled back in and feeling like I have a moment to write a blog post. Plus, I have some fun updates on my own orchid collection to share with you!

First (and most exciting), my NOID Oncidium from Ikea is in spike! This is the second time that it has spiked for me. There are a ton of little spike offshoots growing off of the main spike, so I’m looking forward to seeing tons of beautiful little fragrant flowers in the next few weeks:

Blooms coming soon!
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Keiki Removal and Potting Day!

I last posted an update on my Phalaenopsis orchid keiki grow experiment on September 1—almost three months ago! Since then many of the keikis have been growing quite nicely, developing roots (and, surprisingly, even a couple of spikes!) and today I decided it was high time to remove some of them and pot them on their own.

The first keiki had sprouted two good roots about three inches in lengths, along with a couple other new roots and a spike! I figured the spike was a sign that this guy was definitely ready for its own pot. The mother plant has her own spike as well.

Nice healthy phal keiki with spike
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A Long Overdue Keiki Grow Experiment Update

As one of my readers pointed out a little while ago, it’s high time I updated you all on my Keiki Grow Paste experiment. When I last blogged about it at the end of May (yikes…um…it’s now Sepember), there was some really weird stuff going on with the keikis. But now, I’m happy to report that I do have some bona fide keikis growing, roots and all. Let me show you:

This is the Phal that had the Kermit balls growth
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So Much Orchid Growth!

I have a bunch of good news about my orchids and one bit of bad news, so I’ll start with the bad news first: I lost my Paphiopedilum Wizard of Oz ‘Hausermann’s Toto’ AM/AOS x [Paph. Candy Apple x Paph. Pulsar]. It had been doing very poorly for quite some time, and just didn’t seem to want to recover, so two weeks ago I sent it to the great orchid farm in the sky.  🙁 Orchid kill count: eight (I think??).

In much happier news, I have a lot of good growth going with a bunch of my orchids! Let’s take a look:

My Dendrobium aggregatum has 2 new sprouts
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ROTK: Return of the Klutz

So, I am a gigantic klutz. It’s like my body has no sense of where it is in relation to other objects. I am constantly running into things, even in my own apartment: stubbing my toes, slamming my shins into the coffee table, banging my elbows into the bathroom walls. I’ve been known to walk into walls. Recently I chipped a tooth slightly by banging it with a glass when I went to take a drink of water. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that last night when I went into my Orchid Room to get something off of my vanity table, my hand hit the top of the orchid spike that I’m experimenting on with Keiki Grow Paste. Yeah…the one that I updated you on yesterday. Apparently those new growths are pretty delicate, because I knocked part of the growth clear off. DAMMIT!!

I wasn’t really sure what to do, so I slathered some more KGP on the broken end in the hope that it will just sort of regenerate…like when a lizard’s tail is cut off and it grows a new one.

Sorry for the crappy iPhone pic!

I have no idea what will happen to the growth now. It’s too bad, because that’s the one that was farthest along in its development. So…we’ll see.

Klutziness FTL!