House Orchids 2017

[GordonT]

Well, our brief venture into Springlike weather has vanished... temperature didn't get above -16 C yesterday, and possibly reached -20 C overnight. So now I give you what is in bloom at home. The first two photos are of  what I know as Colmanara 'Wildcatt', though taxonomic revision now names it Oncostele 'Wildcatt' (Oncidium x Rhyncostele). It blooms without fail at least once a year, sometimes twice.

The third photo is of Paphiopedilum Louise Jernigan. This is the second time she has bloomed for me. It seems that the growths need to be at least two years old in order to flower. "Louise is a near primary hybrid of Paph rothschildianum x Paph Wellesleyanum (Paph concolor x Paph leucochilum). The flower would have been better if I hadn't repotted the plant just as it was preparing to bloom (hidden from me until the week after I'd done the deed!)

The last two photos are simply a few cheerful Phalaenopsis that have been going for months. I have had the small white one for almost ten years. The peach one is lightly fragrant on sunny days. Both are "NOID" plants. Hopefully Maggi can rotate the last four photos to their proper orientation.... thought I'd managed to get them saved correctly in the first place... but no!

[Catwheazle]

Cymbidium flavum
Coelogyne cristata
Coelogyne anceps
Paphiopedilum insigne (my oldest plant, mor than 40 jears old)

Bernd

[Catwheazle]

..... and Dendrobium moniliforme starts to flower...

[Gabriela]

Beautiful Bernd, and a Paphiopedilum 40+ years old - wow!
Do you grow them in a sort of solarium?

[Catwheazle]

Thanks 
In earlier years window sill, now in the winter garden

[Steve Garvie]

Paphiopedilum armeniacum -An almost hardy wee Paph. which needs some winter cold (but avoid significant frost) to encourage flowering.

[Johan K.]

Coelogyne fimbriata

Coelogyne massangeana

[monocotman]

Flowering on the sunny side of the house. Four cattleyas.
On the back row, a hybrid Drumbeat ‘heritage’ with a pale form of the species lueddemanniana.
On the front row, a hybrid George King ‘Serendipity’ and a primary hybrid Undine alba.

D4D6FF52-A3AC-46CA-82D7-8582DA77F15C by john quaife, on Flickr

And on the shadier side of the house a couple of hybrid phragmipediums, the pale Cardinale ‘wilcox’ and the eye popping Jersey ‘lauren’.

6E80A901-1B7F-4397-9C98-6EBFD5A60B4C by john quaife, on Flickr

I hope this system of adding bb code to add photos works,

Regards,

David

[Roma]

I've had this Encyclia vitellina since 1986 and this is the first time it has had more than one flower spike
Cymbidium - first time it has flowered since I bought it a few years ago
Masdevalia hybrid -  Have had this a few years. I bought 2 at a local garden centre for 50p each along time ago.  They had finished flowering so were reduced in price.  They produce 2 or 3 flowers at a time but never as many as they had done before I bought them.

[Roma]

Cymbidium

[Anders]

These two common and easy Paphiopedilums hybrids are flowering now in my living room. Leeanum is a spicerianum × insigne hybrid with big beautiful flowers that last about 4 weeks. My farther’s old neighbor’s mother got this clone at her golden wedding anniversary around 1970 and my fathers neighbor generously gave away divisions for many years.

Pinocchio is glaucophyllum x primulinum. The flowers are smaller with less color, but it has 10-14 flowers on each stalk and each flower lasts 3 weeks, which means it has been flowering almost constantly for nine years. I couldn’t resist crossing these two. With the four grandparents, there is hope that some clones may have interesting flowers over a long period, but I guess it will take at least another three years before I can post any pictures.

Anders

[Bart]

Very nice, Anders. That is quite an age to keep them ticking over. I love paph’s but cannot keep them alive for long enough. Despite all the reading and trying different soils,they always deteriorate and eventually die after a repotting. Currently I am hanging on to a couple of plants that are some 5 years old, but one (insigne) has never flowered. I wish they’d be as available from supermarkets as they used to be. Have you got a secret?

[Anders]

Hi Bart, it's simple: inorganic growth medium and the old rule of weakly weekly. I grow them in rockwool, my favorite is 1-cm Grodan  grow-cubes, but I have also used GreenMix with good results. I have tried the commercial peat and bark composts and the roots always end up black and dead. I water once a week with 10% strength liquid fertilizer, and I water the pots from above over the kitchen sink to avoid build-up of salts in the pots. It works for me.

Anders

[Tim Harberd]

A day off today, but the forecast was foul, so I went to my parents to fix Dad’s computer… (It stopped working on Sunday.)

Four gloriously sunny hours later… (Grrrr).. the computer is up & running again.

Took the opportunity to shoot some of his Paphiopedilums

P. Leeanum
P. Grace Helen
P. Senne Lena

Tim DH