OT February Blooms #2

Thought I'd start a new thread, since the other one is over 120 replies already. ^_^

Phal. Fortune Buddha x Brother Pumpkin - I absolutely ADORE this Orchid! LOL

Another one of Phal. Fortune Buddha x Brother Pumpkin to show all the blooms. They start out an orange-coppery color and fade to a pink-purple color. Beautiful!

Lin, this is the Phal you sent me! Isn't it lovely? It's just getting started, too! Has 3 spikes!! Thank you again for it!

Howeara Lava Burst - Cute little Orchid! Seems that it's either in bloom or putting up a spike, and I love the petite red flowers!

Howeara Lava Burst - flower closeup

Hoya heuschkeliana - Smells just like buttered popcorn! Yum!

Sedirea japonica - Lovely little Orchid with lightly lemon-scented flowers.

Sedirea japonica roots. I love fat Orchid roots! LOL

Amaryllis. It was supposed to be Minerva, with some white in the bloom, but it's not. Pretty anyway, though.

Ya gotta love all the pollen in an Amaryllis, though! LOL

Ceropegia woodii seed pods

Ceropegia woodii seeds. I sure hope they're viable!

Episcia 'La Solidad' and Dischidia ovata This has to be, hands-down, the easiest Episcia in the world to grow!

Hey RainGazer! How are you doing? These pics are fabulous!! I love orchids but cannot seem to keep them going. I'm drooling onto my keyboard......
Jacki

Hi Jacki! Gosh, it's been a LONG time since I've seen you! I'm so happy to see you again! Orchids aren't nearly as difficult as I always thought they were. I grow a lot of them right along with my Streps and Sinningias and they do just fine. Phals are the easiest for me. I bet you'd do great with one!

"Ceropegia woodii seeds. I sure hope they're viable!"

Did this a couple of years ago--piece of cake! Nice to meet you RainGazer

RainGazer, what a lovely and healthy collection of plants you have! Nice to meet you.

Sarah

Rain: You've got the "touch" gal ... what a green thumb, or two green thumbs and eight green fingers! Wow! I bet your toes are green too! ^_^ Really, great growing!

I think I still have the orchid I got from you! I don't know what's what with the orchids because the squirrels stole a few right out of their baskets from a tree in the backyard early last summer and I kept finding labels out of pots, scattered about on the ground. Grrrr ... danged Squirrels! I ended up moving them to a different tree and they seemed to leave them alone after that thank goodness! I plan on moving my orchids and hoyas back outside in the next couple of weeks because we are warming up and shouldn't have any more cold nights.

All your bloom photo's are wonderful. Great shot of H. heuschkeliana bloom too! My heuschkeliana just finished blooming and I love the scent ... love the scent but my favorite hoya scent by far has to be the australis! I can't wait for them to start blooming again ... they could bottle the australis perfume and I'd buy it by the gallon, LOL.

That Episcia is gorgeous! I have only one Episcia left alive ... don't have a clue which one it is, the label faded. I love the looks of that Dischidia ovata! I know they are related to hoyas and it sure looks like a hoya. I have one Dischidia, a large Exotic Angel basket of the common one known as Million Hearts.

It is so nice to see 'new' threads started. We have been so 'needy' we are dredging up the old threads back to 2006! (LOL)

Your photos of your orchids are magnificent Rain and I am so grateful to see them. I am so impressed you can make them bloom as you do inside your house.

I paid 29.00 last night on line for an old man's secret to blooming orchids..............looks like you don't need me to give you his fertilizer homemade............but I am going to try it. The man also offered tips on homemade fertilizers for blooming plants and your yard. I am sure that is what our grandparents did.

I need to go to the stickys of the hoya forum and find me H.heuschkeliana (sp?_.........she is a beauty and I am a sucker for reds and purples.

Do you know where you can order orchids with those fancy pancy names you have........the red one I am going to pass out on!

Gessie-do you know about hoyas? I have "Lizard Isle" and there is one shoot that looks like it isn't healthy but the whole plant looks good. Is this a normal thing? Cheryl

mortswife: Can you post a photo of your hoya? I've never heard of one called Lizard Isle, sounds interesting!

PLady- I have a new lap top [Vista program] and I called Canon today to find out how I could hook up my camera. She said I need a "Card Reader" so I will go to the local computer store tomorrow and see if they have one so I can take photos of these lovelies. I got five in 2" pots from Violet Barn. It grows fast and I wrap it around itself and it is hanging. Cheryl

^_^ I just googled Hoya "Lizard Isle" and found it at the Violet Barn website ... along with a few other beauties! Apparently Lizard Isle is a variety of H. australis and it looks identical to one of mine! It is my favorite hoya for fragrance, it has a really awesome fragrance!

Here's a photo of my plant.

oops, I forgot the photo. This photo is from this past summer.


Hoya australis:

WOW! NICE! I check mine every day to see if there's any flower coming on yet. I got the 5/whatever the price was. I have them all hanging because I have only 1 south window [mobile home]. I have a china doll I have about killed and it now has a 1" section of leaves on the stem. I just trimmed down a schefflera thst sits in the business. It looks like it's going to do good, then I'll give it so someone. I just don't have room for too big a plant. Then winter comes around for about 9 months so it's cold.etc, etc. Since Feb 1 I have acquired 31 AV leaves and 1 plug, 3 grow lights and a plant stand. When I do something, I do it well! At least obsessively! :-) ~ ~ kinda like my pictures ~ ~

LOL, it's soooo easy to get addicted, isn't it? Especially with such enablers as are found in this garden! ^_^

well, yaa!

RainGazer, it's good to be back. I'm having spring fever worse than ever this year and I thought, "I need to get back to Dave's Garden!" Nothing else will do :)

When I get my hands on another orchid I will plug in here and things will go better I'm sure...
Jacki

This obsession is a little like my tea cups. I had over 100, and finally donated about half of them to my Senior Center to sell. Think I may have 100 plants by next month? One can only hope!

Lin, I hope Rob doesn't give them silly names when each has a botanical name. Going to Rob's right now to see what he has and what the names are.

phoebesviolets - I'm happy to hear that the Ceropegia seeds are easy! I'm anxious to give them a try. Will let you know how they do.

Thanks, Sarah! Nice to meet you too!

Lin, I'm attaching to this post a picture of the Phal I sent you, so you'll recognize it when you see it! LOL Squirrels mess up everything around here, crazy things. They dig up bulbs, knock over planters, just a pain in the neck in general. LOL

None of my Hoya australis have bloomed so far, and I hope I still have some alive. A lot of my Hoyas died, too, so I don't really even know what I've got left. I had several types of H. australis (over 50 types of Hoyas all together - talk about overdoing it! LOL) so surely one or two are still alive!

I can barely grow Episcias, but that one has done really great for me. Grows like a weed! And that Dischicia is the one known as Watermelon Dischidia. I guess it's obvious why. LOL It sure is a pretty thing, and has really started growing in the last couple weeks. I guess it knows Spring is just around the corner. I had a Million Hearts, but I'm pretty sure it died. Oh well... I might replace it one day.

Gail, you know how I love my Orchids and I do try to take good care of them. They are a bit more tolerant (for the most part) about not being watered, so they do well around here. You'd think I'd grow cacti for as little as I like to water! LOL Here's where I keep as many as I can fit during the winter. My kitchen faces south. There's a large maple tree in the front yard that somewhat blocks light during the summer, but in winter, those windows get lovely southern sun all day long. The Orchids seem to love it! Ignore my messy kitchen. LOL Oh, and my kitchen isn't crooked. LOL It's the way I was holding the camera.

Oh good! I was able to crop out most of the messy part of the kitchen! LOL

You could share that recipe for homemade fertilizer, if you were so inclined. ;o) I'm always up for learning something new!

Hoya heuschkeliana blooms are tiny. The size of a pencil eraser, maybe. But they do smell very good. It's got three peduncles, but none of them are blooming right now. Wish they were... I'll get more pics when it blooms again. It's too small or I'd send you cuttings of it.

I got a lot of them from a lady that sells on eBay. She sells that red one you like so much, and remember the purple one you had a fit over last fall? She sells it, too. Let me find a picture. I know you'll remember it. Here it is. Miltassia Dark Star 'Darth Vader'

Gail, I found her on eBay. http://home.shop.ebay.com/items/Yard-Garden-Outdoor-Living__W0QQ_catrefZ1QQ_flnZ1QQ_sacatZ159912QQ_ssnZtheorchidgalleryQQ_trksidZp3286Q2ec0Q2em282 That should take you to her store, The Orchid Gallery. She has the Howeara Lava Burst (the red one) and the Mtssa. Dark Star 'Darth Vader' (the purple one) both up on eBay. The Brassia Fritz Boedecker is the yellow spidery one I sent to you. She's got a couple Phals I want so bad I can taste it! LOL

Jacki, I have spring fever, too! Can't wait to get outside and get my hands in dirt! I long for warm days outside! Soon enough, I suppose, but it sure is hard to wait! LOL

I don't have any idea what she is but one opened yesterday.........

That's gorgeous! A Dendrobium, maybe? Is it really as green as it looks? I love green flowers!

She is green (lime green) and looks like a dendrobium

Here is the picture of x codanthes Vista................it is your bloom ok..........and my foliage looks like this one so I think we have the same plant, Rain.
http://www.gesneriads.ca/codonat4.htm

***edited to say that the more mature leaves do have red backing on them...........so we both have the same one.......

This message was edited Feb 25, 2009 9:18 AM

I'm glad you figured out what your plant is! I hate not knowing the name of something.

I like Dendrobiums, but the regular ones get too big for me. I have quite a few of the mini Dends, though. Some are doing well, some are not, but I'm trying to figure out what they want.

Here's a Dendrobium that I searched for quite a while before I found it. You know how I love fuzzy plants. This is Dendrobium senile. It's just covered in fuzz! Supposed to be fairly difficult to grow, but it's doing fine for me. Putting out 3 new growths, too, but I don't think I gave it enough light during the winter to bloom this spring. Maybe, but I doubt it.

On the other OT Feb Blooms thread I said I'd post a pic of a mini Phal I have. I can't actually swear that it's a mini, but it stays small and blooms quite a bit, so I'm assuming... LOL It's Phal (deventeriana x Boulder Creek) x King's Ransom

A closeup of the flower. It's not blooming right now, or I'd take more pictures with better lighting. Don't know what I was thinking when I took these. :oP