The first of these is what used to be Ascocenda Princess Mikasa purple, until someone messed around with the names (again), so now its just Vanda which is, admittedly, easier to spell and pronounce. My regular readers will attest to the flower power of this particular hybrid, as it was one of the earlier posts on this blog, the link being back to November 2015. This particular plant also bloomed back in March, and now its at it again. This being the third blog post about this plant, I'm not sure I have anything new to say about it. It sits at the back of the bench, growing and generally minding its own business, and occasionally flowers. It doesn't get watered any more or less than any of the other orchids in the growroom and seems fine with it. You may notice that when I first wrote a post about this plant (link above), I had it listed as having no ID. I have done enough reading and comparing to other plants that I'm confident enough of the ID to change its label.
The Mikasa hybrids are all easy going (for Vandas) and come in a variety of colours. I myself grow four different colours of this hybrid. I should start a national collection.
The flowers are, once again, quite crowded on the spike, but that seems to be the habit of the plant, so I guess I'll just have to put up with it. They are a decent size without being dinner plates, and seem to last well.
I love the lip colour on this hybrid, such a dark velvety purple, like a landing platform (which it basically is).
Every time I post about this I talk about how it is in a pot but I'm not sure how it'll do, but I think its been in its pot for long enough now that I can say this method of culture is a success and just stop worrying about it.
The plant is obviously healthy and happy. You can see how good a bloomer it is by the amount of spent flower spikes on it. Notice that they are mostly from one side of the plant. I've no idea why this should be, but it has always been that way. If anything, the leaf span has increased a little over the few years I've had it, and I would like to think that it is capable of producing more than one spike at a time.
Second up for this post we have the giant blue Vanda (that is not its actual name, purely descriptive. Unfortunately, it doesn't have a proper name. Its probably blue magic or similar but I guess I'll never know). As I've probably said before somewhere, this plant was given to me some time ago. It was quite a size then, but has grown considerably since, and will be getting out of hand before too long.
If you have a decent sized screen or the ability to zoom, you will see on the above photo, about halfway up the plant next to the tie, a couple of leaves shorter than the rest. That is how high the plant was when I got it. No sooner had I installed it than it looked to me as if it got crown rot which would have been bad news indeed, but it continued to grow and now we have a plant that is well over a metre tall. It is growing in that brown pot and has been for some considerable time, now. It lives next to Princess Mikasa discussed above under a 150 watt flourescent tube that is raised higher than the other lights to make room for it. What I'll do as the plant continues to grow I don't know. I can't really take the top off and grow that on because it hasn't produced any roots further up the stem, yet. Time will tell.
At any rate, it is a nice blue (under certain light conditions (no, I don't mean 'in the dark')) and has very nice markings.
The flowers are a good size, as ever, and there are 11 on the spike. This feels a bit mean on a plant this size but is a good amount for a large flowered hybrid Vanda. Plus, this plant has already bloomed this year, and that was only in July, so I should try not to be too greedy.
The next Vanda to bloom will be Princess Mikasa blue, but I expect our paths will cross before then.
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