Restrepia sanguinea Photo

One of my Restrepia sanguinea plants is in bloom. When I pulled up the picture of the flower I was reminded of one of the reasons I started this blog. I wanted to write an orchid book.

Not a real book, but a vanity book for my friends and family to buy. I had seen a couple of mentions of the self-publishing website Blurb.com and the ease of creating a book and the no up-front cost no minimum order fit my casual and low cost life.

The pictures for it were a challenge. While I have all the photos I have ever taken in digital form in folders by month, the fact that I had to find them again and reprocess them at 300DPI and in one of the fixed sizes allowed by the publishing software made it quite a chore to do. I found that a perfectly good web photo cannot always be made into a print photo even starting from the original. I see that this is the case here and I will see if I can take a new flower picture.

The blog quickly took on a life of its own and I don't know if I will finish the book or not. I enjoy doing the blog for its own sake and I do not often think about the book idea. One of the bloggers I follow recently wondered out loud whether she should continue. I can't answer for her, but for me it helps me stay focused on a big part of my life. The blog has a discipline that, each morning, makes me stop and smell the orchids.

Laelia anceps backbulb update

Last summer I decided that some of my Laelia anceps were getting unmanageable. I started with the largest and found that most of the plant with the leads removed was still not attractive. I pictured new growths starting and didn't like the projected result. So I took it apart.

"This is a truly great hardy drought-tolerant species from Eastern Mexico with fantastic flowers" is part of the description of Laelia anceps found in orchidspecies.com. It comes in wide variety of color forms. I have more than a dozen different varieties.

To make a long story short I took all of my Laelia anceps apart into leads and backbulbs. I now have a hundred or so Laelia anceps in plastic pots and tightly packed sphagnum moss.

The anceps spent the summer in the Sonoma greenhouse in just about the warmest and brightest spot I could find. There is more space than my greenhouse and the watering is all by hand so I could control the moisture level in the sphagnum moss.

When fall came I transferred them back home into the spot where I had been growing hard cane Dendrobium hybrids. The automatic watering was off for the winter and they got a splash now and them but remained quite dry.

Now I see new root growth not only at the top of the pot but the new growth is sending roots down into the pot as well. I took these pictures yesterday. Mouse over the photo on the left to see inside the pot.

The old backbulb has roots too but there is still a lot of sphagnum compared with the root mass so I need to be careful about restarting the watering and feeding. The tightly pack sphagnum will help with that since it is slow to absorb water.

Mormodes badia

The genus Mormodes (Morm) contains 70 species growing from Mexico and eastern South America which grow in low altitude tropical forest. Mormodes badia grows in southern Mexico. The species is deciduous and needs dry winter rest. When the leaves start to yellow water is supposed to be withheld.

I have had the plant just over two years and this is the first time it has bloomed for me. The picture on the right was taken when I first got it.

I may have to take another look at Mormodes as a part of my collection. It fits my general idea of a collection from the Americas. It is just that I was of a frame of mind to avoid deciduous orchids. I have enough trouble telling that an orchid is doing ok without having the leaves fall off.

Dendrobium Green Elf

Dendrobium Green Elf is a primary hybrid of Dendrobium convolutum x Dendrobium alexandrae. The flowers are extremely long lasting and have an interesting shape. Both these species grow in Papua and New Guinea although at different altitudes and at different times of the year.

I am not normally a big fan of creating more genera, but I do think I would make an exception for Dendrobiums. There are what seem to be several groups of orchids all called Dendrobium. These Pacific Dendrobiums, sometimes called Latourea, seem to be a group worthy of being a genus.

Cattleya Drumbeat

I have here a tag that I cannot read. I have searched every way I can think of. What I know is that this looks like Lc Drumbeat and that there is no Cattleya hybrid with the words separated. I can find no reference to a name that could possibly be what is on the tag.

Cattleya Drumbeat (renamed from Lc) is Cattleya (Bonanza x Horace) registered by Stewart in 1967. The very popular and awarded clones are "Heritage" and "Triumph". Given that there is what could be a flask number on the tag, I wonder if it is not a remake of this hybrid. It is very pretty with very large flowers.

This particular plant is interesting because there are two bamboo skewers crossing over the plant at the top of the medium. This tells me that when it was potted, it did not have enough roots to be steady in the pot. It is possibly a backbulb division and definitely a rescue. I will repot and divide this plant as soon as I see new growth. It should be very interesting to see what has gone on since it was potted.

Laelia Canariensis 'Golden Glow' HCC/AOS

Laelia (L) has a few species in Mexico and parts of Central America. The South American species have been reclassified as Cattleya.

Laelia Canariensis is a primary hybrid Laelia anceps x Laelia harpophylla. And of course, the RHS has renamed Laelia harpophylla to Cattleya harpophylla

The RHS did not actually change the name, it happened in the naming wars. When you write a paper, you can't say "I agree with the papers which have gone before", you have to change something and then discuss it, and in my mind there is a lot of this kind of thing going on. I follow the RHS in what they call it since I have to trust SOME authority.

Sonoma County Orchid Society Show and Sale

Our show and sale is the weekend of February 6-7, 2010. Saturday it runs from 10am until 5pm and Sunday from 10am to 4pm. The Santa Rosa Veterans Building, 1351 Maple. This is on the North Side of Highway 12 opposite the fairgrounds. Admission is $7. Food and beverages will be on sale in the lobby.

This is a medium sized event with a large sales area and some really nice displays. The member sales area is in the foreground. As you can see there are lots to choose from.

There will be skill sessions throughout the day by some of the great orchidists who belong to our society. I will be giving one of the at 1pm on Saturday and 12noon on Sunday. I will talk about backbulb propagation and mounting orchids.

The show is weekend after next so put it on your calendar. Introduce yourself to me, I'll be there just about all of both days. I'd love to meet you.

Laeliocattleya Gold Digger 'Orglades Mandarin' CCM/AOS

This opens flowers that are pale and the color develops over time.

Dendrobium kingianum

If you were to ask me which of my plants I think about most, it would have to be the two Dendrobium kingianums. Dendrobium kingianum grows in eastern Australia. It is fragrant, needs bright light and needs a dry winter rest.

The first is a specimen in a coconut husk basket. I potted it by washing off all the bark and dropping it in the basket two years ago. There is no medium at all inside the basket. It has grown nicely and bloomed but not with what I would call an adequate number of flowers. I had it outside for September, October and November but wimped out at the first cold night and brought it back inside.

The other has been neglected and now the keikis have keikis. I am going to remove the keikis and repot it. I have thought about saving some of the keikis, but I doubt that anybody wants them for the cost of shipping them.

I have read as much as I can find about them but am not confident in this year's bloom.

Maxillaria sophronitis

I was happy to get this plant from the opportunity table at SCOS just under three years ago. I had missed an chance to get a large specimen plant for only $10 the year before and I was still regretting not grabbing it.

The genus Maxillaria (Max) contains 650 some species spread throughout the tropical and sub-tropical Americas. They have a single flower. Generally warm to hot growing.

Maxillaria sophronitis grows in Venezuela and Colombia. It is a very small plant growing cool to warm, needing constant moisture and bright light.

I hope this is the beginning of more flowers. I don't think the plant was in a bright enough location and I am happy to see any flowers at all.

Laelia anceps 'Tomiko'

This is sold widely as a Laelia anceps variety and it is better know that way. However, it is Schombolaelia (Schomburkia lyonsii x Laelia anceps). I have only had it for two months so this is the first I have seen the flowers.

This was a single backbulb that has grown back to blooming size. The backbulb is right in the middle of the pot, larger than any of the others. It is in a clay pot in sphagnum moss. There are four new pseudobulbs, all or them small. It is typical for new backbulb growths to be small.

This is ready to be re-potted. I will do it when the new growth starts in a couple of months. I can't tell without seeing the roots, but I will likely cut off the backbulb and move the whole plant over in the same pot.

Cattleya Laurie Lynn Westenberger

I only made this division last September and it is blooming already.

I remember this because I cataloged it and have notes. What is not clear is what happened to the rest of the plant. It is not in the catalog. I hate it when I am guilty of sloppy record keeping.

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Since I just divided five different Coelogyne mooreana plants, I have put together a page on the website about dividing them.