Bloom Event - Coelogyne Memoria Louis Forget

I have always had a soft spot for the big white flowered Coelogyne species such as C. cristata and C. mooreana but I can't easily grow them (or rather I can grow them but can't flower them) as my growing area is too warm. I am very grateful that someone has taken the time to create hybrids such as this one (and a couple of others) that will grow warm. Coelogyne Memoria Louis Forget (Memoria means in memory of) is a very attractive and easy to grow primary hybrid between Coelogyne speciosa (pod parent) and Coelogyne mooreana 'brockhurst' (now more correctly known as C. mooreana 'magnifica'). It seems amenable to growing at a range of temperatures (remember that C. mooreana is a cool grower and doesn't seem to want to bloom at warm temperatures; at least, mine doesn't), thanks to Coelogyne speciosa.

My plant was divided at around Christmas time into three pieces, two of which have now been sold or exchanged, and the third is staying with me. It was in dire need of division as the pseudobulbs were piled on top of each other at some distance from the surface of the growing medium. In case you wondered why the were piled on top of one another, it seems that the pseudobulbs arrange themselves into a spiral and once the new growth has come full circle it grows on top of the oldest backbulbs. I hadn't realized quite how much this had impacted on the plant's growth until I saw how it took off once it had been divided. I divided it just after blooming, as this is the time during which it is producing new roots. I fully expected the new pseudobulb to be on the small side as I had both disturbed the plant and removed backbulbs. Not so. It has produced its largest yet, and has now produced a nice new shoot which is already blooming.

It would appear that I am to get several flowers of this new shoot, too. The only improvement I could think of is that I would have liked more than one new shoot. Maybe next time.

I have read several times and from some excellent sources that Coelogyne resent disturbance. I can honestly say that I have yet to meet one that has complained in the slightest. The only thing I would add is that, as is common with most orchids, they need to be re-potted at the right time. It is not that they will die if you re-pot at the wrong time, but that they will not produce new roots until they reach the right point in their growing cycle, so you might as well wait until then. This is no different at all from repotting Cattleya or any other genus, really.

As you can see, it has inherited some of the sequential blooming habit of its speciosa parent, but it does hold several flowers open at a time and they are quite long lasting, too. There is also a sweet fragrance which must come from the C. mooreana parent, as C. speciosa has only a vague scent that couldn't be described as sweet. Also, note the fairly upright flower spike. All in all, this is a nice hybrid to grow. The only real downside to it is that the plant can get rather large. I don't mind this at all, though if you are short of space you might want to consider smaller species or hybrids.

Primulinas in Bloom !

Just to prove it isn't all about orchids all the time, I thought I'd share some other stuff that is in bloom at the moment and on this occasion, the Primulina are the starts of the show. Primulina are relatives of the Streptocarpus and saintpaulia which many people are familiar with. At least under my conditions, they are easier to grow than either of them. They come from the cooler parts of Asia and seem well suited to our climate here in the UK. They aren't typically grown outside as their cold-hardiness hasn't been properly tested out and there is no way they wouldn't be a gourmet banquet to any passing army of molluscs. They are excellent houseplants for a cool lightly shaded windowsill, though.  They may be either rosulate like a Saintpaulia (they actually all grow a stem, but some species/hybrids possess shorter stems than others), or they may grow into what looks like a Bonsai tree with a tuft of leaves above a bare stem. I find both forms quite attractive with the flowers just being an added bonus.

First up is Primulina tamiana, a charming little species which the most strongly resembles a saintpaulia at least when out of flower with its coin shaped slightly hairy leaves on a longish stem. In fact, it is often referred to as the Vietnamese violet. The flower stems are held well clear of the foliage and bear a few flowers that open sequentially over a couple of weeks. The flowers are individually short lived (as with most gesneriads) but are produced over an extended period.

A charming species all round. Flowers can appear at any time of the year but usually the plant blooms during the warmer months, probably as the day-length increases. I go this plant as a clump in a community pot but I think this looked quite untidy when it was out of bloom as I couldn't really see the individual rosettes. I separated them and potted them on separately and now a couple of them are producing flowers.

Primulina 'Erika' Unfortunately with Primulinas, there doesn't seem so much information out there about what species these named cultivars have come from . With orchids it is very simple to find information about a plant if you have its correct name. Not so with other plants unfortunately, and Primulina is no exception. All this means is that I have no idea of this plant's parents or whether it is a named variety of one of the species. It's not that important in the grand scheme of things, but I do like to know.

Have a Google for Primulina Erika. Go on. Look at that, the second entry was written by me! If you look through the rest of the entries you will also see how little information there is out there on these plants, especially if you want it in English. I guess they just haven't caught on quite yet, probably due to the popularity of their more famous cousins.

I've only had this plant just over a year, but it looks like in time it will produce a tuft of leaves on top of a sturdy stem. Some growers, I've no doubt, won't like this and will want to either keep burying the stem lower and lower to keep the rosette at soil level (as you would with a Saintpaulia if you keep it alive that long) or just lop the rosette of with a couple of centimetres of stem and re-root it. I have done this in the past (with other cultivars, not this one) and it works just fine, but I actually prefer them to take on their adult persona and I have never thought they looked ugly with a length of bare stem. Leaves are shed from the base at about the same rate as they are produced from the top, and there doesn't seem to be any way of preventing this, meaning that whatever you do you will end up with bare stem eventually. Let it happen, I say.

A nice tidy plant, as you can see. The next set of leaves are ready to drop, I'll snap them off once they yellow a bit more. The flowers are held nice and high above the plant, and remind me of candelabra, especially when they are in bud. The narrower leafed forms of Primulina are to me much neater in appearance than many of the broad leafed ones, though I guess its a matter of personal taste.

Primulina 'Candy'. A nice clear pastel pink flower. Again, no real idea on the actual parentage of this. My guess would be that its a sport of another hybrid, to be honest. Once again, not the general lack of information available. I wonder if this is a sport of 'Chastity' (coming later in this post). This is its first proper season of producing flowers, and I'm sure subsequent stems will hold the flowers further away from the foliage. There are more stems coming, I looked. This is a broader leaved variety, but not enough to make it untidy. I would say it is slightly less vigorous than some other varieties.

This one seems to be more prone to producing offsets from the main stem so probably won't develop the bare stem that some varieties do. If all these offsets produce flowers too, it will make quite an impressive show in future seasons. Or I might decide to remove them, root them and pot them up separately. I haven't really decided, yet.

Now, believe it or not, this one doesn't actually have a name. It is very similar to P. 'Aiko' in the flowers, but the foliage is much neater, darker and more compact. I got this plant a few years ago now at a garden centre (not local to me) when visiting family, and I spotted this almost straight away. It was very cheap and a nice full plant but didn't have a name, not even Chirita (what is now known as Primulina used to be part of genus Chirita, but the true Chiritas are quite different). There were several rosettes growing in one pot making the plant nice and full looking, but as discussed earlier, I find multiple rosettes in one pot rather untidy looking. I didn't do anything with it for some time until fate intervened and I put the plant outside to spend the summer which resulted in the dreaded vine weevil completely destroying the root system and almost killing the plant altogether. As a last ditch attempt to save it, I de-potted it and divided it up in to separate rosettes (so I could get all the old potting medium away from it, and any rogue vine weevil larvae or eggs would have nowhere to hide. Not one of the rosettes had any leaves, poor things. Not being one to give up that easily, I put each separate rosette in a pot of its own with nice new potting mix, put them on a shaded window sill and left them pretty much to their own devices, expecting them to die. Instead, they all rooted and grew away much better than they ever had before. I have now sold all but one of them, and this is the plant I have left.

Nice and tidy. The flowers are quite large on this one, and are held nicely above the foliage. Each leaf (on all Primulina) seems only capable of producing one flower spike, so it is essential to keep the plants growing so they produce more new leaves and in turn flower spikes from the leaf axils. 

Finally in our little sojourn through Primulina town we have P. 'Chastity'. I have been growing this one for years. It really is a tough, vigorous and prolific plant. This is one of those Primulina that produces a stem very quickly with a tuft (or tufts) of leaves on the top. I have found that the leaf size decreases as the plant gets taller but I don't know whether this is simply a result of the plant exhausting its potting medium. I really need to take the mother plant out of its pot and change its potting media, especially now I've chopped the rosettes off the top and rooted them separately. By 'rooted them separately' I mean hacked them off and stuck them in a pot on their own. Needless to say, they have all rooted. And the stumps are re-sprouting.

I'd like to say this is the mother plant. It isn't. This is a cutting I took off the mother plant last year and have now had to pot on. I think that is a 13cm pot I've put it in now. This hybrid/cultivar or whatever it is is capable of producing quite a lot of flowers. The main drawback with 'Chastity' for me is that it pongs! It's not that the flowers pong, the whole plant does. Its almost as if the plant is producing some kind of smelly oil of some sort, presumably as a defence mechanism against something that likes to eat it. Luckily, it only smells if you mess with it, not if you just walk past.

So, what are my secrets to growing Primulina?

There aren't any really. They seem to be vigorous and easy going plants, on the whole. I have found that they grow better when given good drainage and the like to be kept on the dry side (not bone dry, you understand, but the surface of the compost should dry between one watering and the next). They definitely put on a growth spurt after the spring equinox, but you'd expect that given the extra light and (slightly) warmer nights. Regular repotting seems to benefit them, too, as does regular feeding. I usually like to put slow release fertilizer in the potting mix when I pot them on rather than use a liquid feed, but I can't imagine them being that fussy either way. Feeding certainly will give you more flowers and more often. A tomato feed used sparingly every two weeks should do the trick. They enjoy cool temperatures as do their relatives, the Streptocarpus, but they seem easy to get through the winter and don't look a mess during winter either as many Streptocarpus do.

Bloom Event - Phalaenopsis Corning's Violet

'Corning's Violet' sounds like an ambiguous name for an orchid before you realise that it is a direct reference to the plant's parents. Phalaenopsis Corning's Violet is in fact a hybrid between P. violacea and P. corningiana, registered in 1976. In fact there are quite a lot of these hybrids with similar names, and all of them are called Corning's something or other. Quite a neat way of naming primary hybrids, don't you think?

Anyway.  This plant and I haven't really had the time to get to know each other properly, but we are gradually becoming better acquainted. You might remember that it came from second delivery I got from Schwerter (link in the right hand column) back in March. It came with flower spikes on it, so I can't really claim credit for the flowers (although if the plant wasn't happy it could have aborted them as my P. dragon tree did after I repotted it. No panic about it though, it is growing both a leaf and new roots). There always seems to be a 'settling in period' for any new plants before they decide whether they are going to grow for me or not, and I have to say that while this plant has decided it likes me, the same can't be said for the Asconopsis I got in the same delivery. Don't get me wrong, it hasn't died or anything. It has basically done nothing at all. I would have expected some root growth by now, but I can't see any evidence of it at all. I had heard that it was a difficult one, so I shall have to be patient.

I really like this flower. Nice strong colour and attractive markings. It doesn't show up particularly well on the photo, but there are some bristles sticking up on the lip that put me in mind of a little toothbrush. The flowers aren't huge for the size of the plant, it has to be said. They seem to be produced in dribs and drabs from the tip of the spike, so hopefully the flowering time should be quite long. Flower spikes are short and self supporting, shorter than the foliage with the flowers being held just above the leaves. This is the first spike to bloom, there is a second following.

The plant is nice and compact and doesn't take up too much space. Both the parents of this hybrid are scented, so it comes as no surprise that this plant is scented too. I thought for several days that I was going to be disappointed by the scent as no matter how hard I sniff I could only get a very faint hint of something sweaty. However, over the last couple of days the scent has really developed and now it is very reminiscent of Brassavola nodosa. I have read of it smelling of cinnamon bubble gum, but I'm afraid my imagination isn't vivid enough to paint it that colourfully. Whatever the description, the sent is very pleasant and quite strong.

I always take it as a good sign that a plant is settling in to my conditions when I see new roots, and this plant is rooting nicely. I especially like it when I see new roots emerging from the main stem as opposed to new root tips emerging from existing roots.

Bloom Event - Bratonia Shelob 'Tolkien' (1)

For most of my life I've been a big fan of J.R.R. Tolkien's epic fantasy "The Lord Of The Rings", and I spent quite a long time looking for this particular hybrid at a price I was willing to pay. I kept looking on the dreaded eBay but they were selling for £40 plus in some cases, and not even for a flowering size plant. Needless to say, I'm not one of those people with either (a) the amount of patience needed to get it to flowering size, or (b) more money than sense. However, I did eventually manage to get hold of one in an exchange (still from an eBay contact, but not through eBay). I was told that it is actually Bratonia (Miltassia, back then, in fact) Shelob 'Tolkien'. Now, I have done a good deal of Googling and I can't find any other cultivars of Bratonia Shelob around so it might be that Shelob 'Tolkien' is the only one that is around.

The taxonomists have, needless to say, been messing around with the names and this plant was always known as Miltassia, which is an intergeneric hybrid between Miltonia and Brassia. The sharper eyed among my readers will notice that the word Miltassia is simply a shortened version of Miltonia and Brassia shunted into one word. The new name, Bratonia, is......the other half of Miltonia and Brassia shunted together and shortened. Confused? You should be. I'm not sure what the reasoning is here, other than to confuse innocent enthusiasts. One theory I have has to do with who the mother and father of the hybrid are. What I mean to say is that if the mother plant (the pod parent) is Brassia, then that should be the first credit in the generic name, with the plant that provided the pollen bringing up the rear, as it very much were. I'm not sure what happens if someone decides to cross them the other way (or even if that would work), but would it be called Bratonia, or Miltassia? One for the hive mind, I think.

I can't quite make up my mind about this flower. If you Google for pictures, you will mostly find much stronger colours than I see in my plant. Although I think it is pretty in its own way, I find the colours rather....well, dowdy. It could be that there are better clones out there than this, and I suppose the lighting must make a difference too. I might also be being a bit impatient and the colour will deepen as the flowers mature, but somehow I doubt it as I remember thinking the same the last time it bloomed.

My regular readers will have probably noticed that I don't grow very many Oncidium alliance plants, even though I love them. This is because I can't give them the lower temperatures they need, especially in winter at night (I'm only meaning they mostly need a night minimum during winter of around 10C, not a deep freeze). However, I do grow both Miltonia and Brassia as they both seem to enjoy higher temperatures. These intergenerics seem quite happy to be kept warm, too. I got good flowering out of my Beallara Eurostar (or whatever name it goes by these days) before I gave it away in an exchange, and the same is true for Bratonia Shelob. Each pseudobulb blooms at its appointed time with no intervention from me whatsoever. I'll even go so far as to say that the flower count is improving too, though 7 or 8 seems the limit for me (I assume the lower flower counts usually found on Miltonia is the reason for this).

You will notice from the quite bizarre angles I'm having to hold the camera at in these photos that Bratonia Shelob isn't the world's best flower arranger. While the flower may have a very Brassia like shape, the arrangement of flowers on the spike has none of the elegance of the Brassia. This is a great shame, because it would be a quite stunning hybrid if it only arranged its flowers a little better (thanks, Miltonia!)

As Bratonia hybrids go, this one is nice and compact with the flowers held above the foliage so at least the plant looks vaguely tidy. I think I have even detected a light fragrance, though there are so many other much more scented orchids in bloom, I could have been mistaken.

Not long after I got hold of this plant in an exchange, I found another one in a local garden centre. Unlabelled, except as 'Orchid, Mix', it was quite a large plant which I have now divided into two, both of which are now in spike. I shall look forward to comparing them to this one, though I doubt if they'll be significantly different. When they bloom, I'll post again so I have a record of each blooming.

Bloom Event - Prosthechea Green Hornet x Epicattleya Miva Etoile 'Noire'

I've got a bit lost in the naming of this one. To all intents and purposes the plant appears to a straighforward Prosthechea hybrid, but there's some Cattleya in there somewhere. Quite what it adds, I can't say. Not a lot by the look of things. The confusion arises because when the species gets renamed, nobody bothers to rename their hybrids. At the time of writing, I'm on a bit of a voyage of discovery myself. I love this orchid but it hadn't occurred to me to challenge the given name. The first part isn't a problem at all, I have Prosthechea Green Hornet in my collection, and its a lovely little hybrid. The second part is more of a challenge, and i've had to do a fair bit of digging and Googling to find out what it should be.

So what is Epicattleya Miva Etoile 'Noire'? Well, first of all it doesn't contain any Epidendrum or any Cattleya. The actual parents of this cross are Prosthechea cochleata (used to be Epidendrum, but has been up to half a dozen different genera since, according to some sources) and Guarianthe bowringiana (previously known as, among other things, Cattleya bowringiana). So according to current taxomomy, its true name should be Guarechea Miva Etoile 'Noire'. Luckily, my plant doesn't seem to be registered in its own right so at least only half its name is wrong. I'm not convinced its worth the bother of altering the label if I'm completely honest.

Without further ado, I guess I'd better show you the flower:

I guess it's a bit of a marmite flower - you either love it or hate it. I'm in the first category (clearly). I'm assuming the colour must come from Guarianthe bowringiana, although how its got from that vibrant plum colour to almost black I don't know. I assume it must have been a particularly dark clone of the species. This is the first flower on the first spike since last year, so the show will improve with time. This is a large plant (at least for something that is 1/2 Prosthechea cochleata and 1/4 Prosthecea lancifolia, so I assume the Guarianthe in the background has increased the overall proportions of the plant as well.

I used to have several plants of this cross that I obtained from a German nursery, but I have sold all but one of them. I also have a few divisions of another plant of the same cross that I got a few years ago that I will offer for exchange or sale once I'm sure they are properly established (they are due to flower soon, so that would seem to me to be a good time).

This particular plant (which I intend to keep in one piece) put out three new growths last year, and is now flowering off the first of those (hopefully the other two won't be too far behind as I would like three spikes out at the same time). I think I probably grow this hybrid warmer than it would really like, although the warmer temperatures do seem to result in fast growth with pseudobulbs hardly resting before sending up new growths. There are two new growths on my plant already, but only one flower spike as yet. This hybrid seems capable of flowering at any time. I suspect that if I take it out of the growroom and subject it to cooler nights for a few weeks, I will probably get another couple of flower spikes. I seem to remember that when I put orchids in my (very well shaded) greenhouse at the start of what we laughingly called a summer last year, this hybrid bloomed within a few weeks.

Looks like a pretty average sized orchid really, until you realize that that isn't the standard 12cm orchid pot, and those aren't medium bark chips its planted in; no, it outgrew that pot ages ago.

Some orchids, and this looks like being one of them, can be manipulated by temperature. I have never been one for showing my plants at society meetings and such like, but a nifty trick to get good blooming on some orchids is to grow it warm so it puts on loads of pseudobulbs but doesn't flower well. Once the temperature is dropped, the plant triggers blooming regardless of whether it is mid growth or not. Quite a lot of Cattleya alliance plants do this, the classic example being Iwanagaara apple blossom. I hadn't realized it at the time of writing the post about it, but those flowers I posted about were the first of quite a few flower spikes. The two spikes it was blooming on are over now, but the plant has since initiated another five spikes, two of which are blooming now. I had been growing this plant in my growroom where it was growing just fine but I was finding it bloom shy. I wouldn't have changed anything if it hadn't been for the terrible attack of scale insect it contracted resulting in me quarantining the plant to stop them spreading elsewhere (I haven't actually treated the plant yet as I don't like to do it while they are blooing), but now I have it in a cooler room, every single unbloomed pseudobulb, no matter how old, has now put out a spike. There are some orchids this won't work on, as not all of them will bloom from old pseudobulbs, but many of them can be manipulated in this way and I wonder if that is how people who know far more than I do manage to get such fabulous bloomings on their plants.

Bloom Event - Phragmipedium longifolium

Much as I'm no real lover of slipper orchids, I do still have a few Phragmipedium species and hybrids. I'm not the world's best grower of them, but they do OK for me.

At the moment, I have Phragmipedium longifolium in bloom. I have seen specimens of this plant that are very large indeed with flower spikes several feet high and branched, but my plant is much more modest than that. To be quite honest, I'm having trouble persuading it to bulk up so there is only ever one growth and a new growth. It grows and flowers regularly, so I'm in no hurry to change its culture. Although it is a green flower, I find it rather charming in a way that Paphiopedilum isn't.

Flowers are quite large (around 5 or 6 inches from tip to tip) and are produced sequentially on the spike with the present flower dropping just as the new bud is opening. As is typical with Phragmipedium in general, the flower drops without warning while still in perfect condition; without any process of 'going over' that you would see on any other orchid. This type of Phragmipedium often get called 'Mandarin Orchids', probably a reference to the droopy petals looking like a Chinese moustache. At any rate, it can't be a reference to the plant's origin as Phragmipedium all come from South America.

One major difference I have noticed between the flowers of Phragmipedium and Paphiopedilum is that the rim of the lip is always folded inside the flower on Phragmipedium (i.e. the rim you see is a fold while the edge itself is inside the pouch). On Paphiopedilum, the rim is not folded. Whether this is a feature intended to modify the aperture of the pouch while not impacting on its size or visual impact, I don't know but it is something which interests me.

One might describe the flower as dowdy, but the more one looks at it, the more intricate patterning and colour distribution is revealed. Note the red speckling on the base of the lip just below the staminode, the red stripe bordered by white on the petals and the delicate netting on the dorsal sepal. Notice also the apple green splodge just marking the opening to the pouch. All of this detail is easy to miss, even on a flower this large.

Although I have already said that this plant is not performing to its best, it still grows and blooms regularly and in this respect many Phragmipedium have an advantage over their Asian cousins, the Paphiopedilums, in that they tend to be faster growing and bloom more reliably. They can (and should) be grown a good deal wetter than almost any orchid I have ever attempted to grow (except maybe for Disa), and most species and hybrids are perfectly happy standing in a tray of water. They do not like to dry out at all and plants will suffer if they do. They probably prefer rainwater over tapwater as most orchids do, but my tapwater is very soft anyway so I'm not having any problems with water quality. These are the only orchids that I don't grow in bark chips although I see no reason not to use bark chips provided the plants are repotted regularly. My own plants are potted in rockwool cubes as they can be kept wet at all times and do not break down. The only issue with rockwool is that fertilizer salts can build up and cause problems. Regular flushing with fresh water and not overfeeding will help to sidestep this issue.

Bloom Event - Prosthechea chondylobulbon

I'm losing track of all these name changes. If you google for Prosthechea chondylobulbon you get taken to the IOSPE entry for Anacheilium chondylobulbon. I give up ! At any rate, this species is, at least on paper, a cool grower. As any casual reader of this blog will soon realize, my growroom is anything but cool with temperatures more suited to keeping Phalaenopsis and Vanda happy. This species does seem to have quite a wide distribution across Central and South America so I would expect it to be quite adaptable as a potted plant.

It is, at least compared to the other Prosthechea species I grow, quite tall and slender and frankly has relatively few flowers for the size of the plant which are of a similar size to P. cochleata. Having said that, it is an elegant and attractive flower.

As you can see, it is a typical cockleshell form with a very nice detail on the uppermost held lip (properly the flowers are termed non-resupinate) and are actually the right way up. The flowers have a honeyed fragrance which to my nose is very unpleasant (and reminds me of P. Green Hornet). To others I've no doubt the flowers are deliciously fragrant. At any rate, I'd prefer even an unpleasant fragrance to no fragrance at all.

Slightly unfortunately, the flowers are held at an angle such that they are quite difficult to see into as the lip actually points forward so I had to get almost under the flower to take the photo. There are six flowers in total on the spike.

The plant has two lead growths but the other is smaller than this one and hasn't flowered yet. There is a new growth coming up so maybe this time. As well as being tall and slender there is quite a length of rhizome between the pseudobulbs (I'm almost tempted to call them canes as I would a Dendrobium); consequently it will soon climb out of its pot on both sides. I got it from Burnham Nurseries (link to the right) from one of their special lists (they publish one every Christmas) and I haven't seen it for sale since. It 'sulked' for quite a while after I got it. Many orchids sulk while they are settling in; having said that, some of the most notorious sulkers settle in fine while some of the so-called 'easy' species and hybrids take years to settle down. You can never tell. This plant is now over its sulking period and is growing nicely, making canes of a similar size to the previous years or even a little larger. I'm rather dreading having to disturb it to pot it on as I imagine it will sulk again, then.

Bloom Event - Dendrochilum glumaceum "Orchid Paradise"

So when I said the next post on Dendrochilum would be for species latifolium, I clearly lied. I had even put D. glumaceum "Orchid Paradise" at the front to remind me to take it into the sitting room to properly enjoy, and I still forgot it was in spike.

This variety of the species is rather later than my other plants (I have several plants), but that suits me more as I have a succession of flowers that way instead of them all being in bloom at the same time.

The flowers really don't look any different from any other variety of D. glumaceum that I've ever met, and the scent is the same also (very strong and spicy sweet; one of my favouries in fact). There are an awful lot of flowers per spike but they are very small, creating a bottle brush or pipe cleaner effect when they are all out.

The main difference between varieties (I don't think any of them are 'official' varieties, as such) seems to be in the colour of the sheaths that protect the new growth as it emerges. I often liken them to bloomers as they look rather like baggy trousers at the base of the new growths. On this particular variety they are a lovely pinkish colour and quite slender compared to some varieties.

There is an attractive green sheathed form, too (I have two plants so swapsies are possible), and one labelled 'Wisley'.

Dendrochilum glumaceum is a nice small sized orchid that reliably produces sprays of highly scented flowers. It is easy to grow and is one of the most trouble free orchids in my collection. My plants are still a bit young, but hopefully they will bulk up over the coming years. With many orchids I have found that they stubbornly produce one new growth per year for quite a while before suddenly hit what I call 'critical mass' and then lots of new growths start emerging at once. Each lead is capable of producing two shoots, so plants should bulk up really rather fast. Older pseudobulbs can be persuaded into growth also. Of course, getting the conditions right in which they grow is half the battle with them, and I am now getting larger pseudobulbs which in turn produce more new shoots and more flower spikes in turn.

One technique which is quite successful in getting plants of a certain size to bulk up is one that I usually employ on Cattleya and that is 'back cutting'. This simply refers to the practice of counting back three or four pseudobulbs from the lead growth and snapping the rhizome. An experienced grower might count back more or less pseudobulbs depending on what they think they can get away with. This bulks plants up and produces more lead growths more quickly but may result in the plant failing to bloom until it has built up some strength. Usually Dendrochilum are perfectly good at bulking up on their own and don't need any help other than patience.

At any rate, this species in all its various forms is a real favourite of mine, and I always look forward to the blooms. Quite often this species will produce new growths in autumn as well as spring, but these tend not to bloom for me.

Bloom Event - Dendrobium anosmum

Wow. Just WOW! What a beautiful flower. This is only a baby plant and it will get a LOT bigger in the future, but my word what a lovely flower. They are rather larger than I expected but that might only be because they are on such a small plant. I got this species in a Dendrobium trade and to this day I believe I got the better end of the bargain. Hopefully the chap I traded with will read this and know how pleased I am with this plant (and the other two he sent me, but they aren't flowering yet).

I don't usually go for what I call wishy-washy pastel colours, but the dark splodges on the lip really  make the flowers stand out. The delicately fimbriated edge to the lip is lovely and the closer I look the more lovely it is. The plant unexpectedly produced two flower spikes from its newest cane (it has three) with two buds on each so there are flour flowers in total.

'Anosmum' means 'without scent'. I can't fathom why it got called that. When I walked into the growroom this morning I knew something new had opened, and I knew it wasn't the scent of Dendrochilum glumaceum (post on that coming soon). For four flowers to have filled the growroom with scent is quite something. Descriptions of the scent include 'raspberry sherbert' which isn't far off the truth. Actually to my nose the scent is exactly the same as you get on some hybrids of Dendrobium nobile (which I no longer grow) but is a lot stronger so you can tell what it is. A bigger plant in full bloom must be quite overpowering up close and I really look forward to smelling it.

There is a new growth emerging, too, so I know the plant is all set to grow away nicely. It will need a dry winter rest for it to bloom well so I'll have to remember to give it that, though I don't believe I need to chill it so that means it can stay in the growroom. As it grows the canes will get quite long so it will probably have to be hung (makes it easier to give it that dry rest). So far, it seems very undemanding. I also have two young plants of the white form of this species (var. dearei) which are also growing away nicely but which don't seem inclined to bloom just yet.

New Plants Update and Bloom Update - Dendrochilum abbreviatum

I'm such an airhead sometimes. I missed a plant out when I did my New Plants post earlier. To be fair, the plant is tiny so I think I can be excused. There has been a notable lack of Angraecoids in my collection which I am working towards putting right. Angrecoids are a small group of orchids that are native to Madagascar and grow nowhere else. Most species enjoy intermediate to warm or even hot conditions. They mostly have white or green flowers with good fragrance in many cases. Unfortunately, they seem to have picked up an unfortunate reputation for being difficult plants to grow and flower well and for not adapting well to pot culture. I have two members of genus Angraecum. The first, A. sesquipedale, is growing away very nicely indeed in a pot although I can't call it a fast grower by any means and I think it is still a good couple of years away from blooming. The second species I have is A. eburneum. This one is smaller (though will grow to gargantuan proportions in the future) and is in recovery mode at the moment as it didn't have a good root system when I got it. I looked at it today and I can see signs of root growth so it is definitely going in the right direction.

My new plant which I forgot about is from another genus of Angraecoid, Aerangis. in complete contrast to Angraecum, Aerangis species mostly resemble small Phalaenopsis though they are generally grown mounted onto cork bark so the flowers can hang in a natural looking way. I have got Aerangis fastuosa.

This is a dwarf species which produces night fragrant flowers which are very large compared to the size of the plant (in fact they pretty much are the size of the plant. I think my plant still has some growing to do before it reaches blooming size. Understandably, I will be very excited indeed when it decides to bloom. Assuming I can keep it going that long, of course. It was very cheap so at least I won't be losing a great deal if it doesn't thrive.

And now a bloom update on Dendrochilum abbreviatum. When I first posted about this species coming into bloom, only one spike of flowers was open, so I was a bit premature, really. I was very excited because it was a first blooming for me. Now, a week or so later, all five spikes are open and I thought my dedicated readers deserved to see what it looked like in full bloom, so here it is.

Impressive, huh? I guess some might say I'm easily pleased but I think that's lovely. It has a strong scent now almost all the flowers are open, and it really carries, too. There are still more Dendrochilum to look forward to, with D. latifolium next up (assuming those new growths produce flower spikes).

Bloom Event - Coelogyne usitana

I've been unbelievably excited about this species. My regulars will recall that I have but recently purchased this species and that it was already in spike when I got it so I can't really claim any credit for the flowers. I have a few hybrids of this species (Lyme bay, Bird in flight, etc) so I am interested to see the species flower. Although it's not to everyone's taste, I have to say I'm rather smitten with it. The overall colour is rather more green than many of these 'dowdier' coloured Coelogyne (i.e. any of them that aren't the brilliant white species and hybrids), with a gorgeous chocolate brown coloured lip which puts me in mind of chocolate limes. Don't ask me why.

The flowers face downward which is an adaptation to keeping the heavy rains of its country of origin from the centre of the flower and spoiling them. Of course, this isn't necessarily a desirable characteristic for orchid growers as the plants need to be grown in baskets to easily appreciate the flowers. I'm not growing it in a basket at least for the time being, but then I'm not concerned about the nodding habit of the flowers. From what I told, this is a characteristic that comes through into its hybrids very strongly, too.  We shall see.

I've held the flower up here so we can see the flower rather better. I really love that colour combination (and so do the hybridizers, though I'll be surprised if any of the hybrids are better than the species - it is really early days for Coelogyne hybrids). The flowers are produced in succession from an extending flower spike and this is only the first. I don't know how many flowers there will be. No scent that I can detect. Of course, to get a spectacular blooming the plant needs to have many lead growths with several spikes producing blooms simultaneously. Just give me time.

A photo of the entire plant. If you click the link at the beginning of this post to see the plant when I got it, you will notice that we have lost an old leaf but the new growth has grown considerably. The nodding flowers make the plant look somehow bashful. Quite lovely.

New Plants - Trip to Burnham Nurseries

As promised, I have a little collection of new plants to show you all. Not in a gloaty way, you understand. No. Not I. I got quite a good deal on these plants because I took some spare plants (leftovers from the time when I erroneously thought I could eke a tiny living out of growing and selling orchids) down to give them. A few Eulophia, couple of Cattleya, a few Dendrochilum, a few Epicyclia. I was deliberately conservative when I got there and started picking stuff up because I wasn't sure whether I would be doing an exchange or just paying for what I picked up. As it happened, they offered me a good deal so I called back later and picked up a few more plants. Yay.

Bulbophyllum  Valley Isle Queen (Jersey x echinolabium). Nice large plant with a flower spike and two more shoots of some description; its a little too early to tell quite what they are. Have to say I'm rather expecting the flower spike to blast as that seems to be what Bulbopyllum do when they are moved, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed that its hybrid vigour will prevent this. It is meant to have large deep red flowers with long petals. As it is 3/4 B. echinolabium, I'm rather expecting it to be "fragrant" and not in a good way. Time will tell, I suppose. Actually, I prefer a bad scent to no scent at all.

Bulbophyllum falcatum. A small species with interestingly shaped flower spikes but tiny flowers. We shall see soon, hopefully, as it has a flower spike coming. Looks to be a sprawling species so another one that'll be fun to keep under control. Another one for a pond pot I think so I can at least tie it to the sides when it climbs over.

Bulbophyllum lobbii. This is probably the best known species in the genus, and is quite rightly considered the beauty. This looks like a nice plant with two lead growths so hopefully it will grow quickly and bloom for me. You can see because this is in a transparent pot that Bulbophyllum tend to be rather shallow rooted and with long rhizomes so it might be that I will grow this in a shallow clay pan (such as might be used for bulbs) but I haven't decided yet.

Dendrochilum uncatum. As any regular reader of mine will know, I am rather partial to Dendrochilum and I like to pick up a couple of new species every time I visit. I guess there isn't much specific to say about this species as yet. It will produce pendent sprays of small cream flowers and should be fragrant. It is showing three new growths so with luck and a following wind I will see blooms before too long. Not that there is a lot of information out there about Dendrochilum species, but I assume it will prove as easy to grow as the others I have.

Dendrochilum propinquum. I know, another one. This one should produce spiral sprays of straw coloured flowers again with a scent. Interestingly, this one has perlite mixed in its growing medium. I'm not sure if that means it likes a bit more moisture or not, but I keep my Dendrochilum pretty damp anyway. No sign of new growth yet, but as we know, Dendrochilum wake up when they feel like it and not before so its just a waiting game. I'm looking forward to seeing this bloom. I think it was this species I saw in bloom in their mother house at Christmas.

Brassia caudata x lanceana. This is a bit of a punt since I have no real idea what it'll look like in bloom, though Brassia don't tend to vary a vast amount. There is a vast amount of root over the side of the pot and I suspect there won't be much root inside the pot. Not because of bad care, but because all the newest growth is well over the side of the pot. There are two lead growths, and I could divide it in two, but I think I will pot it into a basket as I'm getting more success with Brassia by putting them into pond pots or baskets and hanging them. This one does seem to be finer rooted than the others I have; more like a Miltonia, so we'll see how it does.

Ornithidium coccineum. This is one of those that used to be part of the Maxillaria genus (Maxillaria coccinea) but been split away from it. Sadly I didn't take the photo in time to catch the flowers which are a vibrant red colour and quite numerous although rather small. It says on the label that this is a cool grower but I read elsewhere that it will grow warm too so hopefully it will do as well for me as my other Maxillaria family orchids. Looks to be a nice little clumper with lots of new growths.

Coelogyne speciosa 'Burnham'. This used to be known as Coelogyne speciosa var. salmonicolor but for various reasons is know known as 'Burnham'. There is an entirely separate species that carries the name salmonicolor so it would make sense to avoid confusion and strip it from this variety of Coelogyne speciosa. At any rate, this is a completely different flower from the C. speciosa I have so I'm glad to have found it. It was labelled as C. speciosa so I assume it has just got jumbled in with the regular speciosa. I have had to repot it straight away as we had some serious hitch-hikers in the pot (ferns; potted separately) and most of the roots were above the growing medium. I'm sure it will settle in fine, though.

Coelogyne bird in flight (usitana x lawrenceana). I'm pleased to have found one of these and not at a silly price. This looks to be a nice little plant with fresh growth coming. It looks to be a good couple of years away from blooming (especially given the size of its parents; trust me, I grow both of them). I have been told several times that this is a slow grower so I guess I'll have to be patient. Seedlings are very variable in their flowers so I'm doubly interested to see what I get. The plant actually reminds me more of C. lawrenceana vegetatively with its two leaved pseudobulbs and slightly narrow leaves (C. usitana has quite broad leaves). I hope it doesn't go wrinkly as lawrenceana and its hybryds have a habit of doing.

And finally Coelogyne Lyme Bay (speciosa x usitana). I've wanted one of these for ages. This is a division of an adult plant so it should bloom on its next new growth. I had been hoping for a seedling of this cross for a good while (I know the nursery has seedlings in production), so I'm pleased to have acquired an adult plant. It is a bit bedraggled with brown leaf tips and black marks on the leaves. It's nothing to worry about, I'm told this is what's known as a 'dirty grower'; some orchids are like that. Brassias nearly always look a mess, for example, but it doesn't seem to interfere with their blooming.

Bloom Event - Bulbophyllum wendlandianum

I've never really grown Bulbophyllum. My first experience of them wasn't good because I bought one before I could give it the conditions it wanted. At least now I can keep them alive. Through most of my orchid growing career I have been a chronic underwaterer and while this might be fine for some orchids, it certainly does not suit Bulbophyllum which really don't like to dry out and suffer if they do. This is compounded by the fact that Bulbophyllum are generally small sprawly plants with very shallow root systems that dry out very quickly indeed. I have learned my lesson though, and I am doing better with them now I water more often.

The particular species I am featuring here I got from eBay over a year ago. This is actually the second time it has bloomed for me so I must be doing something right. My first photo is a bit of a close up because the flowers are so very unusual.

I really like the tassels on the upper sepal and petals. They flutter in the slightest breeze, as does the rocking lip which I'm told is something of a distinguishing feature for many Bulbophyllum. Now there is a bit of a problem with these flowers along with quite a lot of Bulbophyllum species: The smell. One might be kind and describe this as 'fragrant' but 'odorous' might be a better word. The flowers are trying to attract those unspeakable creatures that consume the rotting flesh and excrement of the world, and I'd say they do a pretty good job of it given the smell. As luck would have it you do have to get close and have a good sniff - at least it doesn't fill the room.

Although this is a slightly odd camera angle, the flowers are large for the size of the plant. The plant is small yet with only one lead growth but it hasn't been any trouble at all, apart from its slightly sprawling habit. It is actually planted in a small basket that some orchid or other originally came in (long dead), but I have put the whole thing into a clay pot (scrounged from a garden centre) to hold on to a bit of moisture and humidity. I've no doubt that it'll root onto the clay and it'll end up being stuck in there forever, but I don't really mind that. More Bulbophyllum will turn up in my next 'new plants' post, so I must be somewhat encouraged.