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Tonight I was talking to B about orchids and wondering why they are so much more interesting than other plants. I think it has something to do with how different their needs are, but it's more than that. B pointed out that every variety is an individual, that they all have unique needs. I think that's a really good point. Every orchid in my house is a little different and behaves differently.
It's not only that, but that's probably a big part of it. The appearance of orchids is also a big factor: I love oncidium alliance orchids because I love pseudobulbs! The bigger the better. I had never seen a pseudobulb before I started this orchid thing and I just love the way they look. When it comes to phals, I love the way the leaves look, and the way the leaves feel when they are healthy and turgid. Phalaenopsis and oncidium orchids have a visual impact unlike that of most other houseplants. I think only succulents and maybe fiddle-leaf figs have that same impact, the same sculptural appeal.
So, on to more orchids. I left off with some photos of #7. Here is another photo of #7, in its humidity environment.
This is a 2-gallon "apothecary jar" with about 3 inches of river rock and water in the bottom. The orchid sits on top of the river rock, so it's not sitting in the water, but it's in a very humid environment. I put #7 in this jar because most of its roots died, leaving it with 3 very short roots. I thought the humid environment would help stimulate it to root, and also keep it from dehydrating and losing more leaves. It has been in the jar for a few months now without growing any new roots. A few days ago ncreased the amount of light it is getting, and the new leaf has had visible growth and it's growing a root bud too. Because #7 doesn't have enough roots to anchor itself in the pot and hold itself upright, it has a support cage made of wire. Once the orchid anchors itself, I will remove the cage from the pot.
#7 was originally top-dressed with small white quartz pebbles, which you can see in this photo, but the shape of the LECA meant that the small pebbles kept slipping down into the medium, and that just annoyed me. Today I received an order of larger quartz pebbles. These are the same as the small pebbles, but a little bit bigger, about 1.5". I added them to the pot today, but I might take a few out and add some small ones to fill gaps. I hope the large ones will stop the small ones from dropping into the potting medium.
Next in our catalog is #4. #4 is an Oncidium Heaven Scent 'Sweet Baby.' Here's the plant:
And here is the bloom:
This orchid is relatively small. For reference it's in a 5.75" pot. It is a hybrid of a very popular orchid, Oncidium Sharry Baby. It's very similar to Sharry Baby, except it is smaller. The flowers are small, numerous, and look dark pink or red in bright light, brownish in low light. This orchid is fragrant! Some people say this orchid smells like chocolate, but to me it smells more like "fake chocolate candy", like a malted milk ball or a tootsie roll. #4 is potted in a mix of LECA and seramis, which is working OKAY, but not perfect. The roots on this orchid are very small, so I thought that the small media would work well, but I think next time I repot I will throw in some large chunky media mixed with small.
I bought this one and #5 at Kroger in July. They both came from Crystal Co Orchids, a grower in Missouri. I haven't seen any oncidiums at Kroger since then, and I kick myself for not buying more of the oncidiums they had. However, I was still very new to orchids at the time, and both of these had very bad roots. So maybe it's for the best.
#5 is Brassidium (a hybrid of brassia and oncidium) Golden Gamine 'White Knight.' This is one of my favorite orchids. I love the very tall pseudobulbs, and the lovely arching growth habit of the leaves.
#5 is also fragrant! It smells a lot like a lily. The scent was very faint when I got it, but I expect it to be stronger when the plant eventually blooms again. This plant had NO live roots when I got it, and it's been slow to come back and slow to grow. It is potted in a mix of leca and seramis.
Here is the lovely bloom:
Next is orchid #8. The is Oncostele Midnight Miracle 'Masai Red'. I bought this orchid at Trader Joe's in early September. It cost me $20 and it came with an English ivy and a planter. The ivy is potted in the back yard and doing well. I was attracted to #8 because it had HUGE pseudobulbs. It has done very well in my place. It has high light, right under the Vaxer, and it's producing new growths and new roots. It is a very heavy drinker, #8 needs to be watered about every 3 days. It is in a large pot that I made from an acrylic mixing bowl. This orchid is a very good grower and bloomer, it has been blooming since before I bought it, so 3 months now. The blooms are beautiful and it has large, round pseudobulbs and long leaves. I don't have a good pic of the whole plant, but it's huge. It is my largest orchid It had 10 PBs when I bought it, and now it has 8.
I find this blooms very beautiful, the texture of them is amazing. The lip looks like velvet.
Orchids #9 and #10 are both pseudobulbs that broke off of #8. #9 had live roots and so I potted it. It started to grow a new PB, then aborted the new growth and died. #10 has no roots, I am keeping it in a moist and dim place to see if it sprouts anything.
#11 and #12 are my newest acquisitions, both phals. Like #7, they are more compact than #6, and they have branching spikes instead of arching spikes. They probably have some doritis ancestry. I got these at Kroger, right after my sinus surgery; they are from Silver Vase Orchids, a very large USA orchid grower. I thought I only liked phals with large blooms, but I saw these clusters of very small blooms and fell in love. Both plants are very healthy and pretty. They have yet to be repotted; I am waiting until this bloom ends or at least pauses, before repot. I will be potting one, maybe both, of them in lava rock, with a sprinkle of seramis.
#11 is the first one that caught my eye. I am not even usually into striped phals! But this one was very pretty. The blooms are very bright, saturated, when they open, and the color fades with time.
The blooms are very small:
#12 I saw second. I was trying to choose between the two of them but I really, really wanted them both! 12's blooms are a little larger than #11 at the moment, and 12 is also growing some new branches on its spike. I have a hunch that it's going to be a long bloomer.
The bloom is very pretty:
Sometimes I wonder what these complex phals would look like, to the original wild pollinators of the phalaenopsis orchid. Species phals make themselves look like mates, or threats, to attract pollinators. Would a complex hybrid like this look like an angel?
And that's the end of part 2.
It's not only that, but that's probably a big part of it. The appearance of orchids is also a big factor: I love oncidium alliance orchids because I love pseudobulbs! The bigger the better. I had never seen a pseudobulb before I started this orchid thing and I just love the way they look. When it comes to phals, I love the way the leaves look, and the way the leaves feel when they are healthy and turgid. Phalaenopsis and oncidium orchids have a visual impact unlike that of most other houseplants. I think only succulents and maybe fiddle-leaf figs have that same impact, the same sculptural appeal.
So, on to more orchids. I left off with some photos of #7. Here is another photo of #7, in its humidity environment.
This is a 2-gallon "apothecary jar" with about 3 inches of river rock and water in the bottom. The orchid sits on top of the river rock, so it's not sitting in the water, but it's in a very humid environment. I put #7 in this jar because most of its roots died, leaving it with 3 very short roots. I thought the humid environment would help stimulate it to root, and also keep it from dehydrating and losing more leaves. It has been in the jar for a few months now without growing any new roots. A few days ago ncreased the amount of light it is getting, and the new leaf has had visible growth and it's growing a root bud too. Because #7 doesn't have enough roots to anchor itself in the pot and hold itself upright, it has a support cage made of wire. Once the orchid anchors itself, I will remove the cage from the pot.
#7 was originally top-dressed with small white quartz pebbles, which you can see in this photo, but the shape of the LECA meant that the small pebbles kept slipping down into the medium, and that just annoyed me. Today I received an order of larger quartz pebbles. These are the same as the small pebbles, but a little bit bigger, about 1.5". I added them to the pot today, but I might take a few out and add some small ones to fill gaps. I hope the large ones will stop the small ones from dropping into the potting medium.
Next in our catalog is #4. #4 is an Oncidium Heaven Scent 'Sweet Baby.' Here's the plant:
And here is the bloom:
This orchid is relatively small. For reference it's in a 5.75" pot. It is a hybrid of a very popular orchid, Oncidium Sharry Baby. It's very similar to Sharry Baby, except it is smaller. The flowers are small, numerous, and look dark pink or red in bright light, brownish in low light. This orchid is fragrant! Some people say this orchid smells like chocolate, but to me it smells more like "fake chocolate candy", like a malted milk ball or a tootsie roll. #4 is potted in a mix of LECA and seramis, which is working OKAY, but not perfect. The roots on this orchid are very small, so I thought that the small media would work well, but I think next time I repot I will throw in some large chunky media mixed with small.
I bought this one and #5 at Kroger in July. They both came from Crystal Co Orchids, a grower in Missouri. I haven't seen any oncidiums at Kroger since then, and I kick myself for not buying more of the oncidiums they had. However, I was still very new to orchids at the time, and both of these had very bad roots. So maybe it's for the best.
#5 is Brassidium (a hybrid of brassia and oncidium) Golden Gamine 'White Knight.' This is one of my favorite orchids. I love the very tall pseudobulbs, and the lovely arching growth habit of the leaves.
#5 is also fragrant! It smells a lot like a lily. The scent was very faint when I got it, but I expect it to be stronger when the plant eventually blooms again. This plant had NO live roots when I got it, and it's been slow to come back and slow to grow. It is potted in a mix of leca and seramis.
Here is the lovely bloom:
Next is orchid #8. The is Oncostele Midnight Miracle 'Masai Red'. I bought this orchid at Trader Joe's in early September. It cost me $20 and it came with an English ivy and a planter. The ivy is potted in the back yard and doing well. I was attracted to #8 because it had HUGE pseudobulbs. It has done very well in my place. It has high light, right under the Vaxer, and it's producing new growths and new roots. It is a very heavy drinker, #8 needs to be watered about every 3 days. It is in a large pot that I made from an acrylic mixing bowl. This orchid is a very good grower and bloomer, it has been blooming since before I bought it, so 3 months now. The blooms are beautiful and it has large, round pseudobulbs and long leaves. I don't have a good pic of the whole plant, but it's huge. It is my largest orchid It had 10 PBs when I bought it, and now it has 8.
I find this blooms very beautiful, the texture of them is amazing. The lip looks like velvet.
Orchids #9 and #10 are both pseudobulbs that broke off of #8. #9 had live roots and so I potted it. It started to grow a new PB, then aborted the new growth and died. #10 has no roots, I am keeping it in a moist and dim place to see if it sprouts anything.
#11 and #12 are my newest acquisitions, both phals. Like #7, they are more compact than #6, and they have branching spikes instead of arching spikes. They probably have some doritis ancestry. I got these at Kroger, right after my sinus surgery; they are from Silver Vase Orchids, a very large USA orchid grower. I thought I only liked phals with large blooms, but I saw these clusters of very small blooms and fell in love. Both plants are very healthy and pretty. They have yet to be repotted; I am waiting until this bloom ends or at least pauses, before repot. I will be potting one, maybe both, of them in lava rock, with a sprinkle of seramis.
#11 is the first one that caught my eye. I am not even usually into striped phals! But this one was very pretty. The blooms are very bright, saturated, when they open, and the color fades with time.
The blooms are very small:
#12 I saw second. I was trying to choose between the two of them but I really, really wanted them both! 12's blooms are a little larger than #11 at the moment, and 12 is also growing some new branches on its spike. I have a hunch that it's going to be a long bloomer.
The bloom is very pretty:
Sometimes I wonder what these complex phals would look like, to the original wild pollinators of the phalaenopsis orchid. Species phals make themselves look like mates, or threats, to attract pollinators. Would a complex hybrid like this look like an angel?
And that's the end of part 2.
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