Seventeen Blooming Orchids!
As promised, I’m finally sharing photos of all the orchids currently blooming in my collection! Having a greenhouse has really stepped up the number of blooms that my orchids provide me with each year. Blooming was more sporadic when I growing orchids in my various apartments over the years.
First, take a look at this stunning Phalaenopsis that John got me a couple years ago:
This NOID Tolumnia from Lowe’s put out a couple flowers in January; they’re kind of faded now but they’re still hanging in there. This orchid didn’t bloom for me for a very long time, then bloomed in 2021, but didn’t bloom last year. So I was happy to see a couple flowers on this orchid again!
Similarly, this Tolumnia Golden Sunset ‘Red’ didn’t bloom for more than ten years, then bloomed in 2021, but not in 2022. This year, the orchid put out two spikes, each with a few beautiful little flowers!
Another NOID orchid that I absolutely love for its unusual coloring:
This NOID Phal from Ikea makes me happy. I love its bright color combo and jagged edges:
This mini NOID Phal from Trader Joe’s has a bunch of waxy wine-colored blooms on two different spikes. They’re sort of growing every which way, but I don’t mind:
I’ve had this classic white NOID Phal for about a dozen years now! You can’t go wrong with lovely, large white blooms:
Here’s yet another NOID Phal from TJ’s; I bought this one shortly before everything shut down for the pandemic in 2020.
Another NOID Phal from…you guessed it…Trader Joe’s. I bought this one in 2010 and it has bloomed many times for me. The blooms are starting to fade a bit, as they’ve already been open for a couple months.
I received this NOID Phal as a birthday gift in 2011!
I bought this Phal Yellow Butterfly ‘Amber’ in March of 2010 and it never bloomed for me until 2021! This is now its third consecutive year of blooming:
The orchid I’ve had in my collection for the longest is this peloric NOID Phalaenopsis that I bought at Home Depot in July 2009. It has bloomed more reliably for me than some of the orchids in my collection, and it gives me so much joy.
I love the atypical shape of the blooms on my Phalaenopsis Star April’s Coming ‘M230’:
This NOID Phal is the baby plant that I grew off of the spike of one of the Trader Joe’s orchids seen above!
Another orchid that I purchased in March 2010 that didn’t bloom for me until last year is the Phalaenopsis Laurel Blau ‘Hugs and Kisses.’ So I cherish these flowers when they appear:
This is a NOID orchid that I bought from TJ’s at the end of January this year. Every now and then you can find a more unusual-looking orchid there, so I like to snag them when I see them:
This Phal Venosa ‘CH’ is a keiki from a mother plant that died. This keiki, which I removed and potted on its own a couple years ago, put a couple blooms out at the end of a spike that had been hanging in there for some time. Both blooms have faded, but it was nice to enjoy them for a bit:
Also exciting? My NOID Oncidium that I bought at Ikea in June 2010 bloomed for the first time in ten years! The blooms began to open last November and faded in early January, and I was so, so psyched to see this orchid bloom again. I didn’t even remember what the blooms looked like!
That’s it! I’m so grateful to have this greenhouse in our backyard, where my orchids generally seem pretty happy. I do still lose an orchid here and there, but it’s so nice to see blooms on some of the ones that I’ve had for a decade or more. Orchids have a reputation for being finicky, but they really can thrive for a long time given the proper care!
