Brooklyn Orchids

St. Louis Visit: Mom’s Beautiful Orchid Blooms

November 28, 2014 No Comments

Happy ~~Black Friday~~ Day After Thanksgiving, everyone! My husband and I flew to St. Louis yesterday to visit with my parents for a few days and had a lovely dinner with them last night (thanks, Mom!).

Like me, my mom is an orchid enthusiast, and she currently has 15 orchids in the house. They’re spread out over a few different rooms, but most of them are getting southern exposure and are looking quite well. Two of them are blooming like gangbusters at the moment, and they’re so gorgeous that I wanted to share! Apologies for the iPhone quality photos—I actually FORGOT to pack my camera for this trip! Who am I?! I never forget my camera!

First up is a nice, large Oncidium Intergeneric Green Valley Honey ‘Sweet Lady’ which has one spike in full bloom and a second spike in development:

Brooklyn Orchids Merchandise

Now Available for Holiday Gifts: Brooklyn Orchids 2015 Calendar + Coupon Code

November 18, 2014 No Comments

The mercury has dipped—for real, it’s 27°F with howling wind in Brooklyn right now—and along with the chilly temperatures comes a ton of of eating, drinking, and, of course, holiday shopping. If you’re looking for a holiday gift for ~~yourself~~ the orchid lover in your life, why not snap up a Brooklyn Orchids 2015 calendar or two from my Zazzle Store? The calendar is filled with twelve months’ worth of original orchid photographs by yours truly and will brighten up any office space year round.

Regular price is $23.10, but Zazzle is currently running a 15% off deal, so you’ll only pay $19.64 per calendar when you enter the coupon code TISTHESEASON at checkout. The code is valid through this Friday, November 21st, so now’s as good a time as any to start your holiday shopping!

The Brooklyn Orchids Zazzle Store also has a ton of other goodies with my orchid photos printed on them, including thank you note cards and stamps that you know you’ll need after this holiday season’s gift-giving frenzy.

Stay warm out there, everyone!

Travel

Honeymoon in Italy: Orchid Spotting

October 2, 2014 4 Comments

My husband and I returned from our belated honeymoon a couple weeks ago, but it feels like we were in Italy just yesterday! We took a two week trip that was sorely needed, and it did not disappoint. Not to mention, I was pleasantly surprised to see orchids pretty much everywhere we went!

Our trip to the Dolomites (which I HIGHLY recommend to anyone who likes gorgeous scenery and fresh mountain air) did not yield any wild orchid spottings, as most of the orchids that grow in that part of the world only in bloom in June and July. However, SO many of the adorable alpine homes and businesses in our little town of Ortisei (in the Val Gardena area) had orchids in the windows, including our hotel—the Alpin Garden Wellness Resort, which I also highly recommend. In fact, the lobby and breakfast room of our hotel was just filled with orchids! If you follow Brooklyn Orchids on Instagram you’ve probably already seen some of the photos I posted.

Off Topic

Happy Labor Day + Ciao for Now

September 1, 2014 1 Comment

I'll be here (Venice) in about 24 hours! Photo credit: holiday-weather.com — I’ll be here (Venice) in about 24 hours! Photo credit: holiday-weather.com

Just wanted to write a quick update before I head to Italy for my honeymoon! As promised, I’ve given my blog a bit of a facelift. It’s officially a work in progress at this point, so there will be more changes once I return from my trip. I want to play around with the theme’s colors, font, etc etc…I don’t exactly have a vision for how I want it to look so I’ll be making tweaks here and there for a little while.

If you see anything on my website that looks funky or broken, please let me know and I’ll work on fixing it when I’m back!

Please send good orchid vibes my way—we’ll be hitting up the Dolomites and Sestri Levante in the Italian Riviera (among other places), and there are some wild orchids in those parts of Italy! From the bit of research I’ve done, the orchids native to the areas we’ll be visiting most likely won’t be in bloom while we’re there, but hey, you never know. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for some wild orchid sightings. And we may try to visit a botanical garden or two in between eating pasta and pizza and drinking vino.

In the meantime, enjoy the holiday and the (almost-but-not-quite) end of summer!

My Orchid Garden

A Few Updates: New Zazzle Products, Makeover Coming Soon, and Underwatered Orchids

August 19, 2014 1 Comment

I'll be rolling around in these fields soon....Photo credit: Jack Brauer — I’ll be rolling around in these fields soon….Photo credit: Jack Brauer

Lots of things going on around here! I love lists, so I present you this post in a list format.

New products in the Brooklyn Orchids Online Store: It’s been way too long since I last updated the products in my store, and I finally have some fun new things for sale—all using my original photographs. I’ve added all kinds of items like thank you cards (my personal favorite is this toothy-grinned Dendrobium, luggage tags (inspired by my upcoming belated honeymoon to Italy*!!), and even some random stuff like nail wraps (NAIL ART YESSSS), a cosmetic bag, and a throw pillow. The coupon code BACK2SCHOOL2 gets you 15% off all products (the deal ends tomorrow, August 20th, at midnight PT). If there are any of my orchid photos that you’d like to see on a particular type of product, let me know in the comments and I can whip one up for you!
Makeover is coming: I’ll admit that I’m the last person to embrace change, but my blog has had the same look for way too long and I’ve decided it’s time for a little spiffing up. Because I’ll be traveling to Italia soonish, I may not get around the all the changes until after I return, but for now just know that you will hit a completely different-looking Brooklyn Orchids at some point in the future. ETA TBD.
Pour one out for the dearly departed: I’m not referring to the disappeared people from The Leftovers. Today, I made the decision to send two terribly ailing orchids to the Great Orchid Farm in the Sky (aka my compost bin). One was the Phalaenopsis that my husband and I received from his parents in an arrangement for our engagement party last year (I hate admitting that I killed that one!) and the other was a Better-Gro Cattleya from Lowe’s that has fared quite poorly lately. I should probably not buy Better-Gro orchids anymore because most of them have died on me, although I do still have three that are doing pretty well—they just haven’t bloomed yet.
In case you were wondering what an underwatered Oncidium orchid looks like, let me show you:

Off Topic

More Orchid Apparel Coming Our Way with Altuzarra for Target

August 14, 2014 No Comments

I’m gonna go off topic a little again here, but it’s orchid-related, I promise. 🙂

I don’t tend to go apeshit over the haute couture designer collaborations with Target like some people. I’m totally not judging; I have my own things I go apeshit over, like getting the souvenir Arrow bag at Comic-Con*. I do, of course, appreciate these collaborations for the creative designs that cost far less than they would normally. Over the years I think I’ve just bought a couple designer pieces at Target, because once I see the items in person I’m often disappointed. I bought an Erin Fetherston cardigan years back, and I bought a cute, swingy blouse by The Webster for Target a couple years ago, but I think that’s it.

However, I may actually have to go apeshit with Target’s upcoming Altuzarra collaboration. I started to click through the full collection slideshow at Refinery29 and was mildly underwhelmed, but then my clicking through stopped in its tracks. Why? THIS:

Altuzarra for Target purple orchid dress

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