Orchid of the Whenever I Get Around to It Week is back today with Tolumnias! In my most recent post I bragged about one of my Tolumnia plants being in spike, so I thought now would be a good time to feature this pretty mini orchid. Tolumnia blooms come in a variety of bright, cheery colors like this specimen that I saw at the NYBG’s Orchid Show earlier this year:
I always feel a little silly writing shameless self-promotion posts like this, but it must be done. 🙂 Now that it’s December—seriously, where the hell did 2011 go??—I’ve created some new products that you can buy as holiday gifts from my Brooklyn Orchids Zazzle store for the orchid nerd in your life (or for your very own orchid nerd self).
Some of the newest items you can buy are:
Brooklyn Orchids 2012 Orchid Calendar
FYI, every product in my store is created with my own original photography. There are plenty of other fun orchid (and non-orchid) products in my store including postage stamps, coasters, mugs, and more. Please spread the word—these are honestly unique holiday gifts for orchid and plant lovers alike! Thanks in advance for all of your support from me, your friendly neighborhood Zazzle ProSeller!
Edited to add: If you would like to see a specific orchid photo of mine on a particular item, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment. I’d be more than happy to create a product for you!
I last posted an update on my Phalaenopsis orchid keiki grow experiment on September 1—almost three months ago! Since then many of the keikis have been growing quite nicely, developing roots (and, surprisingly, even a couple of spikes!) and today I decided it was high time to remove some of them and pot them on their own.
The first keiki had sprouted two good roots about three inches in lengths, along with a couple other new roots and a spike! I figured the spike was a sign that this guy was definitely ready for its own pot. The mother plant has her own spike as well.
Happy Thanksgiving to all my lovely readers out there. I’m so thankful for you and your support!
I’m at my parents’ house in St. Louis, and my mom’s Brassavola nodosa that I wrote about a couple weeks ago is still in bloom. It has an incredibly strong gardenia scent at night!! Here are a couple fun Instagram pictures of it:
I hope you all have a happy and safe holiday!
I’m finding that my post about how to identify whether you have an orchid spike or a root is my most viewed post by far. For example, just in the past week, my spike* vs. root post has been viewed nearly 6x as many times as my second most viewed post of the week. Clearly, “is it a root or is it a spike?” is a big question for new orchid owners!
So in the interest of helping orchid growers out even more, I decided to do another post on this topic, this time with LOTS of photo examples to help better illuminate what a root looks like and what a spike looks like. If you haven’t read my original post, I recommend doing so before you dive into this one. All the below photos are of orchids in my own collection. Because you’ll see more roots growing from your orchid than spikes, let’s begin with root pics:
Today I noticed an article on Gothamist about the Tiger Orchid in bloom at the BBG. And then I went over to the BBG’s Garden News Blog and saw their post about it, along with some really nice photos of this monster orchid’s blooms. Their photographer snapped closeups of these giant flowers, which I failed to get during my visit last week.
According to the Gothamist article, the Grammatophyllum Speciosum gains 100 pounds when it is in bloom! Impressive. Now that was a bit of information that I didn’t know.
I think I’ve earned to the right to be smug and say that I was the first to blog about the BBG’s Tiger Orchid blooming. Just saying. 🙂
But seriously, go see the orchid. I know I’ve said this before. It’s really quite a sight to behold, and there are some other really beautiful orchids to be seen in the Aquatic House while you’re there visiting the Tiger. As I mentioned, winter weekday admission is free, and the Aquatic House (and the entire Conservatory in general) is a wonderful respite from grossy, chilly winter weather.
Edited to add: Commenter Stefano pointed out a gratuitous article about the orchid from today’s online Brooklyn Paper, too. Orchid growing isn’t like baseball or cycling, folks.