Precious Little Jewels & Spikes

Whoops…I forgot to do an Orchid of the Week post last Friday. For shame!

After my Lowe’s orchid shopping extravaganza last week, I’ve been waiting with bated breath for my new tolumnia’s blooms to open. I did my regular Sunday morning orchid watering session yesterday and noticed that one of the buds was starting to open!

And this morning, I got up to discover the fully opened, gorgeous bloom:

How beautiful is that?? A couple of the other buds are beginning to open, so in the next few days I’ll have several little beauties. Woohoo!!

Also on the Woohoo!! front, I noticed that yet ANOTHER one of my phals is starting to put out a spike. I guess phal blooming season is coming up—they do generally bloom in the winter. So I currently have three phals that are throwing spikes. The newest one that I discovered is the one that I bought at the Union Square Greenmarket about a year and a half ago. This will already be the second spike that it has put out for me—it spiked and bloomed earlier this year. You can see the very beginning of this orchid’s spike in this image: it’s the small light green bit in the middle:

And just for fun, an updated photo of my peloric phal’s spike:

That’s all for now. So much orchid excitement in my house these days! So many exclamation points are necessary!