This morning I was in the mood for more orchids, so I took a walk to the Home Depot over in Gowanus, which is really not easy to get to on foot. It’s rather sketchy over in those parts (very industrial), but I made it there and back in one piece and with TWO new orchids! The Lowe’s was on my way home so I figured, what the hell, I may as well stop in there too. And, well—as usual—I couldn’t resist. The orchid I got at HD is this lovely dark red Phal that looks more on the magenta side in this photo:
I totally missed my Orchid of the Week post last Friday, because I was hard at work on a freelance project. Whoops.
I also missed my Sunday morning orchid watering session yesterday, so I watered them this morning instead. And I discovered that a pretty bloom on one of my Phals opened up overnight!
Love the white outline of this one
There are also lots of beautiful blooms on this orchid’s side shoot:
Delicate white and pink blooms
A couple weeks ago, I noticed what looked like not one, but two side shoots from this orchid’s growing spike:
Hmm…could it be?
I thought the growths had that flattened-at-the-tip mitten shape that is characteristic of spikes, rather than the fuller shape of a bud. And I was right! Here’s what the spike and side shoots look like today—you can really see the difference between growing buds and side shoots in this pic (buds on top, shoots on bottom):
More blooms to come!!
Yet another one of my Phals is starting to grow a side shoot. It stopped blooming a month or so ago, so I cut the spike to try and force it to bloom again. Doing this really works! Here’s proof:
New side shoot growth
A couple of my other Phals in spike have swelling buds, so I’m going to have lots of blooms in the near future. It’s so very exciting to see my patience paying off!!
I was just doing some daily inspection of my orchids and noticed that I have what appears to be a terminal spike starting to poke out from the crown of one of my Phals. A terminal spike is one that grows from the center of the foliage of a monopodial orchid, meaning that the plant will no longer be able to grow leaves from there. Healthy Phals usually put spikes out from the base of the plant or in between older leaves. According to chit-chat on orchid forums, a terminal spike on a Phal may signify that the plant is not healthy but is trying to find a way to keep on truckin’. Sometimes Phals that do this will end up growing a basal keiki to try and replicate themselves, but other times they won’t survive.
The Phal with the growing terminal spike hasn’t been in great shape for awhile, and in fact was quite near death about a year or so ago.
Some women shop for clothing, shoes, and other accessories when they need a little retail therapy. Not me—I shop for orchids to get a little pick-me-up. On Thursday, I took a walk over to the Lowe’s in Gowanus, using orchid shopping as an excuse to get out of the house. OK, so the last time I bought orchids from that Lowe’s, they came down with a bad case of aphidsand I ended up tossing them in the garbage. I went into this excursion cautiously, with those creepy little greenish-white creatures in mind. And when I got to the store I discovered that all the packaged Better-Groorchids were 50% off! I’ve only bought one of these before, an Iwanagara Appleblossom, but these were such a good price that I ended up buying THREE of them (for only $7 apiece!).
I went away for Thanksgiving weekend and returned to find an aphid infestation on the two (somewhat) pricey orchids that I bought at Lowe’s a few weeks ago. MAJOR SAD FACE! It looked like the aphids had started in the Miltonidium and then spread to the Miltassia, and were also beginning to spread to the phal sitting next to them on the mantle. The poor Miltonidium was crawling with them:
Aphids munching my Miltonidium
I figure the plant must have had a tiny infestation of aphids when I first brought it home that I totally missed, and they just multiplied. I’m really lucky that I had these plants outside of my orchid room, otherwise I’d have a major problem on my hands. The aphids only got to three plants instead of almost thirty. Christ.
The infestation was so bad that, painfully, I threw away the Miltonidium and the Miltassia, pots and all. I REALLY hated doing this, for many reasons, but I thought it was probably my best bet in terms of preventing those little buggers from spreading. So my newest orchids are my latest casualties. Fortunately, the aphids had just barely started in on the phal, so I washed them off of the plant and it seems to be ok. I think I’ll be able to salvage that one.
But in much, much happier news, I discovered this yesterday morning:
Blooms are opening!
The blooms on my Oncidium Twinkle Fragrance Fantasy are FINALLY opening! I first noticed spikes growing on this plant back in mid-August. One of the spikes actually turned brown so I cut it off, but I still have two healthy looking spikes, this one with only three buds on it. Two of which have now opened and the third is beginning to open.
What I thought was amazing was the speed with which these little blooms opened. By mid-afternoon the buds looked like this:
The buds are almost fully open!
And then by evening, this is what I found:
Tiny, beautiful flowers
Amazing, isn’t it? This *almost* makes up for the loss of my two gorgeous orchids. I wonder why this one spike is only putting out three flowers…when I bought this Oncidium last year at Trader Joe’s, it had a one spike and with LOTS of flowers. It looks like the second spike on this plant will produce more than three blooms, though, so that’s good.
So, nice job, Oncidium! And, RIP Miltonidium and Miltassia. SUCK IT, aphids. I hate you. 🙁
