Josie, a neighbor's West Highland White Terrier, on the front steps. I took this picture.
Unfortunately can't help you there as this one was in bloom when I got it :)
Has yours grown additional side growths? As far as I understand each fan of leaves only blooms once, then the side growths have to mature and those will each bloom once and so on.
I saw the flower and couldn't resist buying it! It's a hybrid between Paphiopedilum "Fred's Wonder" and Paphiopedilum "Presidential Moon" which are themselves hybrids of hybrids.
I bought it from Emerald City Orchids in Tacoma, Washington.
I saw the flower and couldn't resist buying it! It's a hybrid between Paphiopedilum "Fred's Wonder" and Paphiopedilum "Presidential Moon" which are themselves hybrids of hybrids.
I bought it from Emerald City Orchids in Tacoma, Washington.
Interesting about the cinnamon! Sounds like you're doing a great job.
Thanks! Definitely most of the roots are in the bark, about 4 inches cover and half an inch or so sticking up
Thanks for your comment! That's reassuring that it's pretty normal for the stem to be out of the bark. They're not really aerial roots in that they were completely under the bark in the previous pot. It's just the top half-inch or inch or so that's moved up above the bark after repotting. Kind of fun that the roots are so strong to be able to lift up the plant like that!
I repotted a Phaelenopsis into fresh bark about a week ago. It's a small plant and evidently doesn't weigh very much, because as the roots are growing, they're pushing the stem of the plant up out of the pot. The tops of the roots are emerging above the bark, too. I realize now I could have pinned it in place while the roots restablished, but too late for that.
Should I repot it again, reburying the roots and pinning it down? Or should I just let it go and not worry about it? I'm inclined towards the latter; after all, new roots grow from up the stem and their tops are inherently exposed above the potting media. So that makes me think it's probably not a big deal for it to be up out of the pot a bit.
I repotted a Phaelenopsis into fresh bark about a week ago. It's a small plant and evidently doesn't weigh very much, because as the roots are growing, they're pushing the stem of the plant up out of the pot. The tops of the roots are emerging above the bark, too. I realize now I could have pinned it in place while the roots restablished, but too late for that.
Should I repot it again, reburying the roots and pinning it down? Or should I just let it go and not worry about it? I'm inclined towards the latter; after all, new roots grow from up the stem and their tops are inherently exposed above the potting media. So that makes me think it's probably not a big deal for it to be up out of the pot a bit.
Congratulations! What did you do for intense rehabilitation? Did anything else change (sun exposure, temperature, day length)? Hope the momentum keeps up!
Very nice! Looks like it's 3D printed, is that right? Do you plant directly into it or is it meant to hold an inner pot?
Wow that's so special! I'd love to see a picture
Thanks for posting this! I opened RIF this morning to see what would and I was surprised to see that it seems to still work (I didn't try logging in). I hope it's what you described and not some kind of mistake that's going to cost RIF millions of dollars!
On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee is such a special and unique book. I wish there was a book like it for every one of my hobbies! It's an explanation of what happens during cooking at a molecular level, which gives so much insight into how and why cooking techniques and ingredients work well together. In addition to that it blends in hlthr history of cooking (ancient recipes) and literature. It's such a wonderful book! I can't recommend it enough.
I also like Jeffrey Steingarten's writing. His two books The Man Who Ate Everything and It Must Have Been Something I Ate are a joy to read. He is a good columnist for Vogue, which gives him time and money to do all kinds of elaborate cooking projects and travel. The essays are such a pleasure, full of passion and enthusiasm. and humor. Just as an example, the conceit of the eponymous essay of his first book is that a food columnist should eat all foods -- after all, a film critic wouldn't be allowed to hate whole genres of film. So in the essay he tries to get himself to enjoy all the foods he doesn't like.
On the plus side for Seattle, I'm in fern heaven here! And there are massive tulip farms just outside of town. So I don't have it so hard here either :)
Wow so cool! I wish I lived in a climate where growing outside on trees was possible. I live in Seattle, not exactly prime territory. Although I would like to learn about orchids native to the area.
I think overwatering is very common with orchids! They're different than most plants because they grow attached to trees, not in soil. So their roots are designed to be exposed to the air or just barely covered. They get water from rain that runs over them and then dries off as well as out of the humidity in the air. The houseplants we're used to growing grow in the soil where the roots are used to being moist. So that makes orchids a little different!
Here is a great video about watering orchids, it gives more details than I did and it's really helpful because it shows how the roots should look when they need watering. I've seen her other videos highly recommended too!
I will! See my other comment for a book recommendation
This book is the one I've liked most. It's more detailed than most of the books I've read, which I want! But there are lots of good books out there. What I've learned is that flowering is a complex process governed by many different factors and differs between species (of which there are tens of thousands for orchids!).
First it needs to be healthy, so getting appropriate levels of light, water, humidity, and temperature. Then it may need some kind of environmental trigger, this could be daylength/seasonality, change of temperature, or even change in atmospheric pressure from a storm! But then the total opposite too: if a plant is dying it may flower as a last ditch effort at reproducing itself. So basically it's pretty impossible to make it flower on purpose unless you know the specific needs of your plant, just keep it healthy and hope for the best :)
Generally Phaelenopsis orchids (the most commonly available for sale and iconic type) want to be heavily watered (even soaking the pot for 15-30 minutes) and then allowed to dry almost completely over a week or two, more or less depending on the temperature and humidity. Keeping the soil/bark constantly moist causes the roots to rot, so you want it to dry (but not so much that the leaves get floppy/wrinkly). They like bright but indirect light, which is tricky -- not direct sunlight but in a bright location all day. Warm temps, with night time minimums above 60. Higher humidity (mist them with a sprayer sometimes if you can). At least that's what I have taken away from the reading I've done!
cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/518987
I've been getting into orchids lately and reading a lot about them. I have a few, but thought it would be fun to get some more to learn about how to care for them best.
I posted on my local buy nothing group (a neighborhood facebook group where people give away stuff they don't want anymore). I asked if anyone would give me an old orchid that wasn't flowering and said I'd return it if I could get it to bloom again. Well, I had to cut the post off after 18 hours because so many people responded!
The picture shows the first 7 plants I received, but not the 4 I already owned or the 3 more I picked up the next day! I assigned each one a number so I can keep track of whose is whose.
Most were in pretty good shape, just dusty and a few dehydrated. I looked them all over and gave them a wipe down and a watering if they needed it and assessed their needs. One needed to be repotted right away, I think it had been kept too wet and it had a lot of rotten roots. I'll repot a few of the others in the next few days. Otherwise they're off and growing around my house! I'm excited to see how it turns out.
cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/518987
I've been getting into orchids lately and reading a lot about them. I have a few, but thought it would be fun to get some more to learn about how to care for them best.
I posted on my local buy nothing group (a neighborhood facebook group where people give away stuff they don't want anymore). I asked if anyone would give me an old orchid that wasn't flowering and said I'd return it if I could get it to bloom again. Well, I had to cut the post off after 18 hours because so many people responded!
The picture shows the first 7 plants I received, but not the 4 I already owned or the 3 more I picked up the next day! I assigned each one a number so I can keep track of whose is whose.
Most were in pretty good shape, just dusty and a few dehydrated. I looked them all over and gave them a wipe down and a watering if they needed it and assessed their needs. One needed to be repotted right away, I think it had been kept too wet and it had a lot of rotten roots. I'll repot a few of the others in the next few days. Otherwise they're off and growing around my house! I'm excited to see how it turns out.
I've been getting into orchids lately and reading a lot about them. I have a few, but thought it would be fun to get some more to learn about how to care for them best.
I posted on my local buy nothing group (a neighborhood facebook group where people give away stuff they don't want anymore). I asked if anyone would give me an old orchid that wasn't flowering and said I'd return it if I could get it to bloom again. Well, I had to cut the post off after 18 hours because so many people responded!
The picture shows the first 7 plants I received, but not the 4 I already owned or the 3 more I picked up the next day! I assigned each one a number so I can keep track of whose is whose.
Most were in pretty good shape, just dusty and a few dehydrated. I looked them all over and gave them a wipe down and a watering if they needed it and assessed their needs. One needed to be repotted right away, I think it had been kept too wet and it had a lot of rotten roots. I'll repot a few of the others in the next few days. Otherwise they're off and growing around my house! I'm excited to see how it turns out.
It's pretty good! I have only listened to a few episodes so far. I have tended to skip through the first 30-40% of the episodes, which has been a lot of discussion of the guest's academic training and career, which isn't very interesting to me personally. After they finish talking about that, I usually enjoy the rest of each episode!
Wow! Good luck getting to 100! What city are you in?
I heard about the orchid project on this podcast episode, a pretty interesting interview: https://www.indefenseofplants.com/podcast/2022/5/29/ep-371-the-million-orchid-project
This is pretty out of the box. It's just something we've wanted to do for awhile and we're using the 4th of July as an opportunity:
DIY nacho bar: everyone gets a cookie sheet, there's a table with various chips, cheeses, and toppings, and you take turns under the broiler
DIY sundae bar: same thing, but ice cream (and no broiler!)
What a cute idea! How many have you given away so far?
Reminds me a bit of the Million Orchid Project, where plants are given to community members and schools to plant out in their community https://fairchildgarden.org/science-and-education/science/million-orchid-project/
I love how paprika will extract the ingredients and cooking instructions from a recipe site so I don't have to hunt through a page that's a mile long!
It looks terrific! I've never seen one of those growing so rambunctiously. Why do you think your succulents usually get leggy?
Maybe this is a good problem to have, but shopping is more of a chore for me than something fun to do. I'm also a pretty frugal person. For those reasons, it's pretty hard for me to make big purchases, like furniture or even nicer clothing.
I go to the store, I look at the options and none of them seem exactly perfect, I think about how I could just keep the money for something else, I go home without buying anything. Then it takes a long time before I get up the energy to try again. But once I actually buy the thing, I'm happy and wish I had gotten it sooner.
As an example, I moved about nine months ago and need a couple of arm chairs for my new place. I've gone to a few stores, but every time the same pattern repeats itself, and I don't buy anything. It's been months! I'm sure I'll be happy once I have the chairs though.
I don't have trouble spending money at restaurants or on experiences -- those things are fun to me, so I don't mind spending the money. So, how do I get myself to make big purchases when I don't find shopping fun?