Brooklyn Orchids

Fall Spikes in the House!

October 22, 2013 4 Comments

Ohhhh, I’ve been so terribly neglectful of you, my little orchid blog. Not only that, I’ve also been a bit neglectful of my actual orchids, which I feel even worse about. This summer and fall have been ridiculously busy, much more so than a typical few months for me. I had a period of time when I was only home on weekends a couple times within a couple months. For a homebody such as myself, that was pure insanity.

But I’ve finally been able to get some quality time at home and some quality time with my orchids. Now I’m excited to say that this weekend while watering I discovered not one, but TWO Phals with a spike! It’s definitely the right time of year for these to start appearing, with the cooler nighttime temperatures that we’ve been having in Brooklyn.

Spike # 1 is on my peloric Phal that I got at Home Depot several years ago. It spiked and bloomed a couple years in a row for me, but it didn’t bloom at all last year so I literally gasped with surprise when I spotted this burgeoning spike:

The little green nub on the left will be a spike!

Off Topic

On Getting Married—Your Own Way

August 22, 2013 8 Comments

I’ve been pretty bad about updating my blog this summer, because I’ve been busy doing a bunch of really fun things:

Going to San Diego Comic-Con
Celebrating my dad’s 75th birthday here in NYC
Enjoying a lovely weekend in the Finger Lakes
Traveling to Atlanta for a college friend’s wedding
Oh, and getting married!

Yeah, that’s right—I saved the best for last. Obviously this blog is about orchids, but because this corner of the internet is all mine, I’m going to be self-indulgent for a few minutes and talk about my own wedding.

Let me start by saying that I’ve NEVER been the girl who’s planned her dream wedding since she was little. I didn’t imagine a particular dress, a cake, bridesmaid dresses, a color scheme, music, flowers, walking down the aisle, wedding programs, place cards, wedding favors—none of it. Even listing out just some of the typical wedding planning details HERE feels overwhelming!

Travel

Native Orchids in Popular Tourist Destinations

August 2, 2013 No Comments

My recent vacation to Jamaica (and my trip to Puerto Rico last year) inspired me to write this post about the types of orchids that are native to several popular (mostly tropical, of course!) tourist destinations. If you’re planning a trip to any of these locations, see if you can spot some native orchids while you’re there! I’ve only been to three of these places so far, but I hope to visit each of them at some point in my lifetime—and you can be I’ll be keeping my eyes peeled for wild orchids. These lists are far from comprehensive but will give you an idea of what types of orchids you can look out for in each place.

Belize

Approximately 300 orchid species are native to this Central American country whose national flower is the Black Orchid: the Prosthechea cochleata (formerly known as Encyclia cochleata). Orchids from a variety of other species can also be found growing wild in Belize: Bletia purpurea, Catasetum integerrimum, Encyclia radiata, Epidendrum ibaguense, Isochilus carnosiflorus, Lycaste aromatica, Maxillaria hedwigae, Mormolyca ringens, Myrmecophila tibicinis, Notylia barkeri, Oeceoclades maculata, Oncidium altissimum, Oncidium sphacelatum, Sobralia macrantha, Trigonidium egertonianum , and Vanilla planifolia.

Orchid Care

Sign Up for a Free Orchid Care Tips Newsletter!

June 18, 2013 1 Comment

This post contains affiliate links.

There are limitless places on the interwebz where you can seek out information on how to care for orchids. Obviously if you’re reading this you’ve found one such destination, but reading multiple sources will help give you a deeper understanding of what to do with your favorite houseplants. I never rely on just one website when I’m researching what to do with my orchids. So I’d like to recommend another source for getting great, detailed tips and advice on orchid care: sign up for the free Orchids Made Easy newsletter! Ryan “The Orchid Guy” Levesque will bring tons of helpful orchid information straight to your inbox and it won’t cost you a dime.

Just some of the topics that Ryan’s newsletters covers are as follows:

How to get your orchid to rebloom
What to do do immediately after blooms drop
How to identify your orchids so that you can give them the proper care
The five most important things to do when you bring an orchid home
How to tell if you’re overwatering or underwatering your orchid
When and how often to fertilize your orchid
How to tell when you should repot your orchid
What yellow leaves mean and what to do about them
Find out what’s eating or damaging your plant and how to get rid of it

Click here to sign up for Ryan’s newsletter…and enjoy!

My Orchid Garden

My Oncidium Pacific Sunrise ‘Hakalau’ Has Bloomed!

June 15, 2013 3 Comments

One day after my birthday, my Oncidium Pacific Sunrise ‘Hakalau’ really opened up! It’s actually not at all the orchid that I thought it was…but it’s still very lovely. This is what happens when you buy an orchid that’s not in bloom and then you don’t Google the orchid’s name. You think the flowers are gonna look like this:

Fragrant Oncidium — Not in fact the Oncidium Pacific Sunrise!

And then the buds start to form and they look much smaller and darker than you’d expect:

My Orchid Garden

Quick Spike & Bud Update

June 11, 2013 4 Comments

In my latest update on what’s going on with my orchids, I mentioned that one of the Phals I’m growing at my fiancé’s office is in spike. I had accidentally deleted the photo of it from my phone, so I took another pic yesterday—and it’s growing like a weed! It’s funny how much faster these things seem to grow when you don’t see them day in and day out.