A Very Belated Update: My Orchids, and Visiting Orchid Farms

It’s been way, way too long since I last updated this blog and for that I apologize. I’ve actually been traveling quite a bit this summer: Puerto Rico, San Diego, Minneapolis, and most recently, LA and Santa Barbara. But I’m finally getting settled back in and feeling like I have a moment to write a blog post. Plus, I have some fun updates on my own orchid collection to share with you!

First (and most exciting), my NOID Oncidium from Ikea is in spike! This is the second time that it has spiked for me. There are a ton of little spike offshoots growing off of the main spike, so I’m looking forward to seeing tons of beautiful little fragrant flowers in the next few weeks:

Blooms coming soon!
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My Growing Orchid Collection and Some Blooms

Apparently, writing about the orchid of this week this morning put me in an orchid hunting mood, because after I wrote that post, I took a walk to the Ikea in Red Hook (it’s sooo gorgeous out today!) to see what their orchid selection was like. It was crap. So I took the bus back toward Park Slope and on the way there I popped into Lowe’s to see if they happened to have any good orchids. And they did! I couldn’t stop myself…I ended up leaving with THREE new orchids! I promptly repotted them when I got home, like the good orchid geek that I am. All three are those Better-Gro orchids that come packaged in net and plastic, and each cost $13.97. Behold my post-repotted haul:

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Orchid of the Week: Oncidium Gower Ramsey

The Oncidium Gower Ramsey is a beautiful yellow orchid known as the “Dancing Lady Orchid,” and I think it’s easy to see why:

Photo credit: ottawaorchidsociety.com

I chose this festive, cheerful orchid because it represents how I feel about going to The Orchid Show: On Broadway today! I’m doing a little happy dance inside just thinking about all the amazing flowers that I’m gonna see!!!

Photo credit: orchidgalore, Flickr
Photo credit: michaelbrkly, Flickr

Honestly, I’m too excited to really say much about this week’s orchid. Stay tuned for lots and lots of photos from my orchid show visit!

Orchid Retail Therapy

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 aphids and 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-Gro orchids 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!).

Oncidium Ampliatum

Better-Gro Oncidium Ampliatum
New orchid #1
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Orchid Loss, Orchid Blooms

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.  🙁

Blooms and Spikes and Leaves—Oh My!

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted any updates on my orchid collection because there hasn’t been a whole lot going on other than the blooming of the mystery dendrobium, which, by the way, now has two blooms. Each has taken on a more pinkish and greenish tinge in the throat than when they first opened. The faint coloring is a little hard to capture in a photo, but you get the idea:

Beautiful mystery blooms!
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