Bloom Event - Vanda Princess Mikasa Purple and Giant Blue

Although I do grow many less Vanda than I used to do (they take up far too much room), I still hardly seem to go for any time without at least one of them in flower, and now I have two in bloom.

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.

Bloom Event - Miltonia spectabilis var. moreliana

Miltonia spectabilis is a truly lovely species when in flower, but is definitely not grown by enough people. There are a couple of reasons for this. The first is that the whole genus Miltonia is overshadowed by the practically impossible to grow and ubiquitous Miltoniopsis. Secondly, the plants tend to be a bit untidy and are difficult to contain in a pot for any reasonable length of time due to the plants growth habit.

There is a little confusion over the whole Miltonia spectabilis complex, and some authorities now consider Miltonia spectabilis var. Moreliana to be a species in its own right, M. moreliana. I grow both, and there do seem to be differences between the two. For example, var. moreliana blooms a little earlier, and the regular form (at least my plant) seems to often have two flowers per inflorescence, as well as much longer internodes. Whether these are big enough differences to give M. moreliana species status in its own right is for the taxonomists to decide. For the time being, I will continue with the old name until I am told otherwise for definite.

I’m pleased to say that Miltonia spectabilis var. moreliana is much better behaved than the regular form of the species.The shorter internodes mean the plant is much better suited to pot culture. They are still on the long side, but much more manageable. It grows in my warm growroom with most of my other orchids, with temperatures in the upper twenties in the day and in the mid to upper teens at night. It seems a very tolerant species, and I have grown and flowered it quite a bit cooler than this, though not for several years. As is typical with Miltonia species, it is quite shallow rooted and there is no point at all in growing it in anything other than a broad shallow container. It is also fine rooted, but I generally advise against using too fine a potting material and my plant seems fine in medium bark chips with regular watering. Regular repotting is necessary because the plant has quite a gap between pseudobulbs and quite quickly reaches the edges of its container. Luckily it doesn't resent disturbance at all. It has a pleasing habit of frequently ‘breaking double’ and regularly produces two growths from its leading pseudobulb meaning plants can either be fairly frequently divided or will quickly grow into a nice specimen. A favourite trick of mine is to leave the plant in its pot and make a back cut a few pseudobulbs back on the rhizome to force the plant to make new growth toward the back where there is often no leaves or flowers.

The blooms are borne on single-flowered inflorescences as the new growths mature. Spikes appear to be quite slow to develop, but at least the blooms are long lasting when they finally open. I'd never noticed before, but the flowers are delicately perfumed. The colour is a truly wonderful deep shade of Amethyst purple with a slightly lighter lip delicately marked with darker veining. Just stunning. Of course, purple is my favourite colour, so I would be biased. I prefer both varieties of the species to all of the hybrids using this species because although it passes on the lovely purple colour, it also passes on the low flower count and the hybrid flowers tend to be clustered and crowded at the end of the spikes making the flower spikes rather untidy.

I can heartily recommend this species to anyone who can provide a bit of heat and humidity but this is a plant that will probably perform perfectly well as a houseplant.

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 - 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 - Vanda Princess Mikasa Pink and Purple.

I can but live in hope that I am keeping up with the nomenclature of these plants. God forbid I should get it wrong! As I understand it, all of Ascocentrum has now been subsumed into Vanda (again), so these two hybrids that I have always known as Ascocenda are now correctly labelled as Vanda. Whether I agree that they should be in the same genus or not is not relevant here (I do!), but I do find the name changes stupendously tedious. Especially since the names will probably change again during the next round of name changes. As a rule, I tend not to change labels at all if I can help it. If I decide to sell a plant (it is not unheard of), I'll write a currently correct label then.

At any rate, here I present not one but two lovely Vanda hybrids. First off, we have Vanda Princess Mikasa 'purple'.

Unfortuately, the flowers seem to have opened at all angles on this one. This is, in fact, my only complaint about this hybrid. Its flowers are rather crowded on the spike, so they rarely open at the right angle. The colour in real life is much more purple than this photo which makes them look rather blue (which is ironic, since the photos of the proper blue Vanda I have always come out looking purple).

The plant is strong and healthy. I grow my Vanda in pots, as it is not practical for me to have them bare root as most growers do. There is a trend now for growing Vanda in glass vases (which I started myself several years ago) which works fine if you don't have too many plants. For me, it is much easier nowadays to grow Vanda in deep rose pots with coarse bark. Some take to this method of culture (such as this one), some hybrids don't. I have started an experinent with some other Vanda which needed something doing with them anyway using large pond pots filled with coarse bark, the idea being that the air can move around the roots more freely than it can in a pot. We will see how the plants do.

Here we have Vanda Princess Mikasa 'Pink'.

In real life, this is real bright smack-you-in-the-face bright pink, the phto has come out rather dull. This is another easy grower, just like the purple discussed earlier.

The pink variety has smaller flowers than the purple but they do tend to be better spaced on the spike. I All varieties (I have a blue and a white, too) seem to flower several times a year, giving a better turnaround than most of my Phalaenopsis. Even now that I've sold most of my Vanda, there always seems to be at least one in flower. The white one is in spike as I type this. Again.

Vanda do have something of a fearsome reputation for being 'difficult', and this is not entirely unfounded. This is mostly because they dislike the cold and dark winters we have (and summers, some years) this far north. Where they come from, there aren't such defined seasons as ours. In winter under natural light, Vanda deal with this by entering a semi-dormant phase where they stop growing and the root tips cover over with velamen until conditions improve. It can take several weeks of these improved conditions to wake the plants up again, by which time quite a lot of valuable growing season has passed. Not only this, the plants will not tolerate being too wet during this period, which causes problems if plants are grown potted. Most plants are sold bare-root and are hung up to allow air to the roots. In a nice humid warm greenhouse, this is fine, but the plants cannot survive like that in a heated living room as the humidity and light levels will be too low. The solution to this is to place the plant in the neck of a glass vase so the roots dangle down inside where some extra humidity is trapped. The green portion of the plant should remain in the open air, as the leaves are not so humidity dependant as the roots, and extra water round the leaf axils can result in rot. Growing them in vases has its drawbacks too, of course. Vases full of water during watering time are heavy and cumbersome. The filling and emptying of vases can result in the delicate root tips in the vase getting damaged which results in them stopping growth. Anyone with several Vanda will tell you that they take up a lot of space when grown in vases. However, good results can be achieved this way if one is careful.

For me, in pots under lights works well, so that is the method I shall stick to. I will post again regarding my pond pot experiment, either in jubilation or floods of tears, depending on the outcome.