Bloom Event - Dendrochilum abbreviatum

According to the oracle that is this blog, I have been in possession of this plant for almost exactly one year, at the time of writing (January 2017). Also according to my records, this plant bloomed at the end of April last year, so it is significantly earlier this time around. Not that I made a not of such inconsequential details such as spike count last year in my initial post for some reason, but according to later photos there appear to have been five flower spikes which I recall being very impressed with indeed. This year, it has done better than that with seven spikes of flowers, which means we must have more lead growths.

I'm not sure I have much extra to add on this species this year. It is not one to be rushed; it does only seem to put out one set of growths per year  no matter what you do, although a bit of heat seems to bring it on quicker.

It has stayed nice and clean with no bug or fungal attacks and seems quite happy with its life. Once again, you might notice I've been rather premature with the photography and there aren't many flowers open as yet, but you get the general idea. I love how the spikes arch under the foliage, and a larger plant will put on quite a show. You might also notice that I have repotted this. It was really pressing against the edges of the last pot it was in so I thought it was probably time to give it a bit more space. It is really too early to tell whether it'll notice the change or not, but to be honest I doubt it.

Not the easiest to photograph due to the small downward facing flowers, but I'm not sure that admiration of individual flowers is really the point of this species. What we are after here is overall effect, so the more flower spikes the better. A point in favour of this species, especially in light of posts earlier on today is that although quite large for a Dendrochilum, this is a nice sized species for growing on a window sill. It is even quite attractive when not in bloom. My plant just lives among the others in the growroom but I don't see why it wouldn't make an attractive stand alone plant. I guess it appreciates a bit more humidity than your average houseplant, but Dendrochilum as a whole seem rather less fussy than many orchids on this.

There would have been a time when I would have been very tempted to divide this plant up into smaller pieces as there are quite a few growing points, but I'm pleased to say that that impulse has passed. Most Dendrochilum species are much better when allowed to grow on to a decent size and there really should be a jolly good reason for dividing them, especially if they are healthy.

New Plant - Fungal troubles.....Coelogyne rochussenii. VERY scary photos within!

This is one of those posts that most orchid growers won't have the courage to post. It shows that even the best of us have problems growing orchids, and I am certainly no exception. I have always had a love of Coelogyne species and hybrids, especially the warmer growing ones, and have gone out of my way to find out species that I think ought to do well under my conditions.

One of the species that got added to my collections was Coelogyne rochussenii which I obtained from Burnham Nurseries a couple of years ago. I have to say that C. rochussenii is an untidy species with long lengths of rhizome between pseudobulbs; quite a hard plant to accommodate in a pot although not, ostensibly, a difficult grower.  This is a species that bloomed for me shortly after I got it, but sadly not since. It blooms directly from the rhizome (botanically it is said to be heteranthous), and the flower spikes do not come from the centre of a new growth. This is similar to the cooler growing species such as C. cristata.

Now the reason I'm telling you all this is that around a year ago on one of my bi-yearly pilgrimages to Burnham Nurseries I noticed that their quite substantial stock of C. rochussenii was looking......ill. Leaves were spotting and dropping and some plants had died altogether. When I got home I looked at my plant and thought it looked OK (it is a bit of a mucky grower so some spotting is almost inevitable). It has been fairly recently potted on and partially re-arranged so it can stay in its pot. The rhizome is stiff and difficult to arrange unless growth is quite young. Recently, my plant has put out a new growth which looks healthy enough but the older leaves are spotting and turning yellow. Alarm bells ringing?

Scary, huh? Notice the yellow margin and necrotic brown spot within (on the leaf at the back - the front one is too far gone). This looks like classic fungal infection to me. What I need to know is where the disease has come from because this looks exactly like the plants at Burnham Nurseries. Needless to say I have put this plant in isolation and it has been sprayed with a systemic fungicide (fingers crossed the fungicide doesn't damage the plant). Obviously, the damage already there is not going to get better so it all rests on whether I think the damage is getting worse. The easiest (and slowest) way to tell is to keep an eye on the new growth. If it stays clean, then the fungicide has worked. I expect the damaged leaves to drop eventually, and therein lies the danger with fungal attacks. They rarely kill the plant in their own right but they do weaken plants significantly and it can take years for plants to recover.

Meanwhile, in my semi regular check of all remaining plants, I notice that Coelogyne asperata x rochussenii is showing signs of damage....

You can see that the damage isn't so severe on this plant, but note the yellow spotting that is appearing. This plant has also been isolated and treated with systemic fungicide. Fingers crossed. The disease has also appeared on Coelogyne velutina and it looks awful but you will be thankful to learn that I haven't taken a photo of it. The rest of my collection looks clear. I grow a lot of Coelogyne and they are quite close together but disease is not appearing anywhere else. Let's hope it stays that way.

I'm afraid i'm placing the blame for this disease outbreak squarely at the door of Coelogyne rochussenii from Burnham Nurseries.

Interestingly, if you research Coelogyne rochussenii on the internet, there is no reference to it being a straggly, untidy species with long internodes.  All the photos I have seen show a neatly clumping plant that will happily grow in a comparatively small pot. I have bought another plant of this species from eBay (same seller from whom I bought the two Angraecum  before Christmas) and it seems nice and clumpy (some internode but nowhere near as much as on my existing plant) and very healthy indeed with no sign of any disease whatsoever.

My plan is to spray this with fungicide as a precaution. I haven't decided whether to put this into my main growroom as yet (though it will end up in there eventually), or whether to keep it in isolation for a bit as a double level of precaution. At any rate, the new plant looks very healthy so it has the very best chance of staving off any disease that might be in the air.

Bloom Event - Brassavola nodosa

This is a good performer and reliable bloomer for me. My readers will no doubt remember that I've written a blog post about this one before, back in February. I have had a few problems with this plant in the interim. I think I wasn't watering enough while it was hanging up. This species is very good at dealing with drought, but it performs better when not allowed to dry out at all. The leaves were very terete (pencil shaped) and slightly wrinkly. It looked very sorry for itself, and the new growth failed to bloom, otherwise there would have been flowers over the summer, I'm sure.

Since I put the plant on one of the benches so it catches more water, the leaves have opened out and plumped up and are now quite flat and plump. Interestingly, I can't see much in the way of roots in the pot itself, so I assume it likes the extra humidity the matting provides. Most of the roots are aerial and all seem healthy. Two of the growths (the leading one and the previous one) have produced spikes, but its too early to tell how many blooms I might get on the second spike. There are two blooms now open on the leading growth. There are never many flowers per spike, two or three seems quite normal.

My plant no markings at all on the lip, but some forms of the species have delicate purple spotting in the throat. I would dearly like to get hold of a plant like this (not that I'm dissatisfied with my own plant at all - I love it), so if any of my readers know where I might find one, contact me either via comments below or via my facebook page. I'd ask the original seller, but I've had the plant for some time and I haven't the faintest idea where it came from.  After a couple of days, the shape of the lip will improve (i.e. it will open out a bit rather than curling under) but I am always impatient to get a photo when blooms appear.

As you can see, the leaves are all lovely and plump and the plant looks healthier than it ever has before. There are two growing points, two spikes on the first (as described above); its too early to tell whether there'll be a spike on the other lead. I imagine there will be.

As I've mentioned in previous posts, this species is highly scented at night though I haven't experienced the scent yet this time around.

Bloom Event - Phalaenopsis mannii 'dark' x speciosa and Phalaenopsis corningiana

I'm really falling for Phalaenopsis species and primary hybrids. This one is another cracker that I got from Schwerter back in March. It was the only plant in that batch to be in bloom, and the flower spike had been trained up a cane, presumably to save bench space and make packing easier. For this blooming, I decided not to support the flower spikes but to allow them to arch naturally, and I think the flowers are much better displayed as a result.

The flowers are very like P. mannii in shape and patterning, but the flower spikes are much shorter and bear fewer flowers (P. manii can flower for months on end). P. speciosa is the opposite; it has short flower spikes with flowers borne one or two at a time from the tip. The spikes can live for years.  It is a bit of a pity that the flower count of P. mannii hasn't made it into the hybrid, but you can't have everything. I guess its another case of not really thinking through what the parents are expected to bring to the hybrid.

I am growing this hybrid hanging from a wire. This is partly to prevent it standing in water in my trays so the roots stay a bit drier but also so the flower spikes can hang naturally, and I think they look better for it.

Also in flower is Phalaenopsis corningiana. This plant is a recent acquisition from a show about two months ago, although I forgot to do a new plants post regarding it. It is from a UK supplier but the original grower/importer was Schwerter. It has produced a flower which is pictured below. I'll do a proper blog post about it once it has settled in properly and put out fresh spikes under my conditions.

Its another one with short spikes producing a couple of flowers at a time over a period of several years. I love the markings and the shaving brush lip. There is a nice scent to it, too.

Bloom Event - Trichopilia turialbae

That I'm managing to write a post about this plant in bloom is something of a miracle. It is not that the plant doesn't bloom (fairly) regularly so much as that (a) the blooms are so short lived that I keep missing them and (b) the plant looks such a mess that I'm embarrassed to show it to you. At the time of writing, the flowers have already gone over but I did manage to get a decent photo of a flower this time round so I guess I'll have to show you - warts and all.

The plant is not ostensibly a difficult grower and should be adaptable to warm temperatures, hailing as it does from Costa Rica. It grows steadily and blooms occasionally so I should be happy, shouldn't I? Unfortunately, I have never seen such a 'dirty grower' as this, and its foliage is covered in black marks. It doesn't seem to make any difference to the health of the plant but it looks terrible. I am all the more bemused because I have a second Trichopilia species, T. hennisiana, that is definitely a cool grower but which grows well and which has nice and clean foliage. Go figure.

The flower on Trichopilia turialbae however, is lovely. It might not be the showiest of the species in the genus, but it is rather charming.

Flowers do not open fully, but retain a tubular appearance with the lip flaring out. Note the delicate yellow colouring at the centre. I have read that they are fragrant, but I haven't been able to detect any fragrance; presumably this varies from plant to plant. There were three flowers on the spike. One is open, one yet to open and one blasted.

And now for the embarrassing bit....I suppose I should show you what the plant looks like.

I know, it could be worse, but then again, it could be better. I'm intending to turn this out of its pot in the near future to replace the growing medium which must be getting old by now as I've had the plant for three years or more and I haven't had the nerve to change it yet. The other issue here is I'm not sure I'v ever seen a new root emerge on this plant. As it never shows signs of dehydration and the new growths do appear to be increasing in size I have no real reason to worry.

Bloom Event - Coelogyne speciosa 'Burnham'

As even a casual reader of this blog will realise, I love growing Coelogyne, especially Coelogyne speciosa in all its lovely colour forms. I picked up this particular plant on one of my fairly frequent visits to Burnham Nurseries (my Orchid Nirvana). It was in with all the other (presumably regular form) Coelogyne speciosa, but as it happened, this plant had a flower which was obviously different so I couldn't help but purchase it.

There is a lot of taxanomic confusion (surprise) around this colour form of C. speciosa, with many authorities calling it C. speciosa var. salmonicolor. From what I was told at Burnham Nurseries at the time, it can't be called var. salmonicolor because there is already a species of Coelogyne called salmonicolor, so they put the name 'Burnham' to it to differentiate it from the straight colour form of C. speciosa. In fact, modern taxonomy doesn't allow for different varieties of a species at all, so we are essentially free to call the various colour forms what we like. This will clearly lead to confusion and I have already seen several arguments over this on various online forums. Quite why one persons labelling of plants should be so offensive to someone else I can't really fathom. As far as I'm concerned, as long as the plant is well grown, I couldn't care less if their label reads differently to mine and the nomenclature changes so regularly that both labels are likely to be correct at some point in the future. Just chill out, OK?

As you can see, its very pale, even for the 'Burnham' form. This could be due to light levels or some other variation in growing conditions as compared to other people's plants of this variety, but it is rather lovely. While I spend some time looking at, comparing and appreciating the subtle nuances of these flowers, my better half probably sums it up best with "Not another brown flower, surely!?" Philistine.

In the above photo I have tried to show a bit more of the lip detail to illustrate how pale this flower is. The nodding nature of this species makes it rather difficult to get a natural looking photo of the inside of the flower but since it is intended more for scientific curiosity than for aesthetic value it serves its purpose well enough. Note that there are no brown markings at all inside the flower. The 'regular' form of the species has decided brown marks on the keels (those slightly furry looking ridges on the lip), and quite often on the rest of the lip too and in some forms the markings or the entire lip are almost black.

The plant was in desperate need of re-potting when I got it, with more roots above the potting medium than in it, so I didn't even wait for the flower to go over before de-potting it and replacing the potting medium. It seems to have grown away just fine (Coelogyne generally do) and is now re-flowering in its new potting medium.

As you can see, the plant is still relatively young but is growing nicely and is almost at the size where it will begin to produce multiple growths both from the lead and from backbulbs so I'm hoping for a nice clump with multiple flower spikes before too long. As a point of interest, my original Coelogyne speciosa plant began to produce multiple growths a while back, but I ended up having to divide it because the flowers at the back of the plant were of a different colour form to the flowers at the front of the plant, with the flowers at the back resembling the plant in this article with the front of the plant being the 'regular' colour form. Now I have divided it up so I should have plants of two colour forms. Why did this happen? I originally assumed that there were just two plants in the pot. This proved not to be the case as I had to cut rhizome to separate the two. I can only assume that I have a 'sport' on my hands. I will have to wait for it to bloom again before I can be sure what it actually is but at least now I have some decent photos of both colour forms to compare it against when it does bloom.

Bloom Event - Prosthechea lancifolia (trulla)

Prosthechea lancifolia (or trulla - I'll explain later) is a good little performer for me. I have been waiting for this one to bloom so I could blog about it, and now it is. There is a good deal of confusion over the naming of this particular group of orchids. According to recent research, Prosthechea cochleata and Prosthechea lancifolia are conspecific with P. lancifolia being assigned Prosthechea cochleata var. cochleata, at least according to the Kew Monocot Checklist. Some authorities list P. lancifolia as P. trulla. As I always understood the situation, P. lancifolia was not fragrant while P. trulla is fragrant. If P. lancifolia is now conspecific with P. cochleata this would make perfect sense as P. cochleata is not fragrant either. I am going to assume that my plant is, in fact, P. trulla, despite it saying P. lancifolia on the label since it is very fragrant indeed.

I think you'll agree that its a pretty little thing. The plant is small, only a few inches high, with the flower spikes growing to about as tall as the leaves. Now my plant is a few years old, it seems to flower in flushes. You can see fresh buds just in amongst the open flowers on the above photo. The first flush is just starting to go over now, and a second is developing from the tip of the flower spike. This is a habit that some cultivars of P. cochleata have and some plants of that species can remain in bloom for a very long time indeed. P. lancifolia doesn't flower for quite so long but at least there will be more blooms after this first lot are done with.

The plant is nice and tidy and flower spikes need no support. It flowers reliably from the apex of each pseudobulb, though I have no idea whether it has a specific bloom trigger or whether it just does. Either way, flowers last around three weeks in good condition and are very fragrant. I think I prefer the scent of this to Prosthechea fragrans though neither is a particular favourite of mine.

Pseudobulbs are nicely clustered on a short rhizome and are egg shaped when viewed from the front but are compressed and quite flat from the side. This species seems easy going and tolerant of various water related mishaps; more so than many other species in its family (thinking specifically of Cattleya, here). It is quite fine rooted and seems to do well in medium bark chips. I allow it to dry between waterings but not so much that the pseudobulbs start to shrivel. It seems amenable to either warm or cool growing conditions and will probably make a very good windowsill orchid.

Bloom Event - Cymbidium ensifolium "Ching Sha Yu Chun"

Have to say, those Oriental Cymbidium breeders have good taste. You may remember me saying weeks ago in a rather short blog post (i got angry after typing a lengthy post and then losing the lot) that I'd got hold of four Oriental Cymbidium, two Cymbidium ensifolium cultivars and two Cymbidium sinense cultivars originating from Ten Shin Gardens in Taiwan.

Cymbidium like these and a few other species are a big thing in china and Japan and they have growing and displaying of them down to a fine art. I can't hope to achieve such erudition in my craft but at least I have the plants growing which is an achievement in itself. They have not shown any ill effects from being shipped bare root (only from England, don't panic), and have settled well into the mix of sphagnum moss and bark chips I have potted them in. Pots are deep, as is necessary for the robust root systems of Cymbidium, so they will never be as attractive as their Oriental counterparts because the ceramic pots I found online to pot them in were more pricey than the plants. I may be skilled, but I'm not rich!

I have probably ranted before about the difficulties in growing Cymbidium well in this country. There are several problems with the shop-bought plants usually available at Christmas. The first is the constant battle with dead roots on plants coming off the continent and the need to cut flower spikes and nurse the plants back to something resembling health. Secondly, most Cymbidium widely for sale hail from the Himalayas and need temperatures much cooler than we can easily provide in our centrally heated homes. This leads to bud drop in the short term and problems with pests and diseases and lack of blooms in the long term. Cool growing Cymbidium need cool nights in late summer to initiate flower spikes. This can be achieved by standing plants outside during summer and running the gauntlet with more pests and our changeable weather. This has never worked for me and I had largely given up growing Cymbidium altogether. Cymbidium were very popular in the past when we had cooler houses (that is before we invented central heating) but the way we live now just doesn't suit them. Also, they tend to be big, unwieldy plants that take up an awful lot of space and spend a lot of the time out of bloom.

You may gather that I had rather fallen out of love with Cymbidium and pretty much stopped growing them altogether. That was until I realised that not all Cymbidium are cold growers and that several species are well suited to my warm growing conditions. One of them, Cymbidium chloranthum, we have already met during our discussions. I also have Cymbidium aloifolium, and although that has some growing to do before it blooms, it is doing very well indeed. So my most recent acquisitions were the four Oriental Cymbidium I got recently. Imagine my surprise when I noticed flower spikes appearing within a few weeks of potting them up. I attribute that to the change in conditions.

The first to open a flower is C. ensifolium "Ching Sha Yu Chun" and I have to say I think I'm in love.

We have got so used to Cymbidium being large blousy rounded blooms that we forget how beautiful and delicate they can be.  The erect flower spikes are only a few inches high and need no support. The flowers remind me of some Maxillaria species in their structure (no surprise there, as they are related), with the upper two petals swept forward over the column and the lip bent back on itself.  I particularly like how the colour of the flowers and the flower spike is the same (i assume that is down to the skill of the breeders).

For several days now, I have been wondering what the smell was in my hallway. There has been a delicate, sort of lemon zest kind of scent wafting around which I haven't been able to place, especially as it doesn't resemble any cleaning products I use. It was only today that I traced the source back to this Cymbidium. It packs quite a punch for what is basically a miniature. Again, we are not accustomed to modern Cymbidium being scented at all, never mind so strongly. Once again, breeders have selected for large rounded blooms in pastel shades and have lost the scent in the breeding which is a terrible shame. I am already addicted to the scent of this. Luckily I have another plant to bloom yet, by the looks of it with a red flower. I hope that smells as good as this one.

There's not much to add with this second photo but it does show nicely the forward sweeping petals and the colour of the inflorescences. There are only three or four flowers per spike but I understand this is quite normal for cultivars of Cymbidium ensifolium.

The whole plant. As you can see with the label for scale, it isn't large at all. It is actually better proportioned than it looks, its just that the leaves are coming straight out at the camera and the flowers are at the back. What is (arguably) lost in size and immediate visual impact is gained in heaps in elegance.

I think there is great potential in breeding here. These warm growing species could be used as parents to give modern large flowered varieties added temperature tolerance, and possibly decrease their size, too.

Although it is early days yet for me to be giving tips on cultivation of these, I will say that they haven't lost any leaves at all and pseudobulbs are all looking good and plump. Roots are very thick as you'd expect and the plants appear to prefer to be kept on the wetter side. Emerging new growths on all four plants are growing well and haven't showed any sign of a check in growth from being moved. I guess I will find out in the coming months whether the reputation these plants have for being difficult to grow has any foundation in reality or not.

If any of my readers knows of a source of warm growing Cymbidium in the UK, I am very interested indeed.

Bloom Event - Dendrochilum glumaceum (green bract)

I guess I need to start this post with an apology for the lack of new posts over the past couple of weeks. In my defence, I have been rather busy, and I've been on holiday. Also, I have been struck with the 'summer doldrums' by which I mean that there hasn't been much going on, at least orchid-wise, just recently. So sorry and all that, all right?

And now on to business. I am pleased to say that I have persuaded one of my Dendrochilum glumaceum to flower. This doesn't sound like much of an achievement, I know - they flower all the time, don't they? No. They don't. Usually I get a good blooming during the spring and the plants then put out a second flush of new growths during the summer but this is the first time I've got the second flush of growth to bloom. Only one variety of the species seems to have decided to bloom (I have several), but even that is better than nothing. I have two plants and both have put up a flower spike. They are comparatively recently divided so they haven't had much time to bulk up as yet but they are growing nicely. I might even be persuaded to part with one if someone asks me nicely.

The flowers are as lovely and numerous as ever, and the scent is, of course, to die for. Not all the flowers are out yet, so the scent will get stronger over the next week or so.

In the past I had trouble keeping my Dendrochilum 'clean' by which I mean that the foliage would always be covered with black marks, especially on the backs of the leaves and it took me an embarrassingly long time to work out what it was. The culprit was, in fact, the dreaded red spider mite. It then took an infuriatingly long time to put it right which I put down in no small part to both the pests resistance to systemic insecticides and the general watered down nature of modern chemicals. Since the soap spray treatment the plants have stayed clean with no further damage and no marks on the new(er) foliage.

I love Dendrochilums generally, but I will always have a soft spot for D. glumaceum because it was the first one I tried. I didn't do well with it in years gone by, but now I keep them warm and quite wet they do more than tolerably well for me; as you may be able to see, this one needs potting on soon.

As is always the case when one takes a break citing lack of things to post about as an excuse, there is now a lot of stuff to get through in the near future, but it is TTFN for now.

Bloom Event - Prosthechea fragrans

I've had this plant for around four years now, maybe even a bit longer. It flowers regularly every year and is never any trouble. It always amazes me that the garden centres are full of so-called 'easy' orchids (Miltoniopsis I'm looking at you.....and don't start me on hard-caned Dendrobium)  that I can't even keep alive, never mind re-flower. Now, I have my theories on this but I still think the garden centres should be selling plants that have a chance of survival which means they should have staff that actually have some knowledge of the plants they are selling. Instead of this, my experience (and trust me; I have plenty) is that horticultural knowledge and experience is actively discouraged in favour of their spurious training courses that don't teach you anything except how to suck eggs. To put it another way, they want to you to buy a plant that is doomed to die so that when it does, you'll go back and buy another.

Anyway, that's enough ranting for today. Back to the subject in hand. Prosthechea fragrans isn't one that I come across often on my travels. It is a fairly diminutive plant  that stays nice and small and doesn't take up too much room. The leaves are borne in pairs on top of the pseudobulbs and flowers appear when growth has matured (indeed on my plant this is often after new growth has started from the base). There are never many flowers per spike, usually four or five,  although once the plant has grown more there will be multiple growths maturing and so multiple flower spikes.

The flowers are fairly typical for Prosthechea species.....ostensibly upside-down with the uppermost lip looking somewhat like a cockle shell. I guess they are about an inch across, maybe a bit smaller. This species is, as the name implies, quite fragrant. Sadly, I don't like the scent at all, though I imagine there are plenty who would. Still, I have said it before and I will say it again: I would rather a scent I don't like than no scent at all. Flowers last about three weeks in good condition.

As is common with many orchids in the Cattleya alliance, this species produces roots that like to wander across the surface of the growing medium rather than into it. It doesn't matter whether I grow the plant in a pond pot or a regular pot; that's just what they do. You can see that the pseudobulbs are still increasing in size year on year, so I know this plant still hasn't reached its full size yet. Also not the new growth which is already taller than the flowering growth, and the old flower spike that I haven't removed (slaps wrist).

I have an offset of this plant available that has been growing steadily in its own pot for a couple of years. I think the new growth it has now should probably flower. If you are in the UK and you want it, please do contact me for prices.

New Plants - Oriental Cymbidiums

I just typed a whole article out on this and lost the lot so this post will be brief, but I have got hold of some lovely Oriental warm growing Cymbidums from Jeff Hutchings  which were sent to me bare root. The plants are recovering well potted in a mix of chopped moss and bark chips. They arrived in superb condition so I expect them to do well. They all have nice new growths coming so should root out fine in their new potting medium.

New Plants - More Coelogyne

I know. I'm obsessed with Coelogyne. A friend of mine has managed to rescue some nice coelogyne species and hybrids and was kind enough to let me have a few plants to add to my collection. He warned me they weren't in the best of conditions when he got them, but that they should recover themselves given time. The first of these is Coelogyne burfordiense. This is a hybrid between C. pandurata and C. asperata so as you can imagine it is a large plant. My plant is basically a collection of potted backbulbs which are now showing signs of growth.

As well as one decent sized shoot heading off to the side, there are two smaller shoots emerging from other bulbs which have definitely appeared since I got the plant. There are signs of rot on a couple of the bulbs which I will keep a very close eye on. I will have to de-pot this to see what is going on under the surface as there are a lot of fungus gnats buzzing around this plant, and that is not usually a good sign.

I was also given two Coelogyne speciosa. I know what you're thinking - I have two plants of this species already, one the regular colour form and the other 'Burnham' (used to be known as var. salmonicolor). The new additions are a dark form and an as yet unknown one. I'll find out when it flowers.

Both of these are showing promising signs of growth now. One has a new shoot emerging, the other a nice crop of new roots, so they should be back to full health before too long. I can't wait to see flowers, especially on the mystery plant!

Bloom Event - Coelogyne ovalis 'Burnham' and Coelogyne triplicatula

One of the things I love about growing Coelogyne species and hybrids is that there are one or two in flower at all times of the year, and many plants will bloom more than one a year, as well as many being sequential bloomers. The two I'm showing today are quite closely related and are part of the coelogyne fimbriata complex. Some authorities want to lump all species such as C. ovalis, C. fuliginosa and C. triplicatuala in with C. fimbriata to make a species complex. For myself, I would prefer to keep the species separate as there are big enough differences between them to merit this. Both of the plants I'm discussing today are significantly bigger than C. fimbriata (my plant at least), both in terms of flower size and the overall size of the plant.

Above is Coelogyne triplicatula. Apparently the name triplicatula refers to the three keels on the lip, although this is pretty unhelpful since many Coelogyne have three keels on the lip. The lip is darker than it appears on the photo and gives a nice contrast to the rest of the flower. I know the colouring is fairly dowdy, as is the case with many Coelogyne, but the shape and patterning of the lip more than make up for this in my opinion. The flower is smaller than many of the Coelogyne I grow, but is still a decent enough size. Flowers are produced sequentially so the flowering period is extended, much like C. speciosa.

I got this from a friend a few months ago in an exchange and it has done pretty well. It is usually grown in cool conditions but seems to grow and flower OK in my warm growroom. As you may be able to see, it put out three growths but sadly two have damped off and only one has produced a flower spike. In time this will become a sprawling species, and I'm hoping it will produce multiple leads and fill out a bit.

Above is Coelogyne ovalis 'burnham'. The flower is a very pleasing shape, size and colour, hence the varietal name. Leaves are broader than triplicatula, but otherwise the plants are broadly similar. This plant came from Burnham Nurseries. Not sure what I was thinking when I got it as it is also, according to them, a cool grower though once again, it does fine under my warm conditions.

This one only produced two new shoots, but both have gone on to produce flower buds. Unfortunately, this plant sits at the front of the bench and I must have leaned on the flower spike at some point while watering as the tip of the spike has blasted. Luckily, there is a second spike on the way from the other growth. This species has a reputation for being very vigorous and I'm hoping it will fill out nicely and produce lots of new growths in future to make a nice bushy plant.

Speaking of the above plant exchange, I decided to tackle one of the other plants I got today, Stanhopea nigroviolacea. It crossed my mind when I got it that I'd eventually have to do something, and it was on my list much earlier than this. However, it produced a massive amount of new roots almost as soon as I got it and then put out a load of new shoots and I didn't want to disturb it when it seemed so happy. Of course, rather than behaving itself and growing at the top of the basket, some of the new growths decided it would be a good idea to grow out of the side.

We grow Stanhopea in open baskets like this because the flower spikes are pendent, by which I mean the flower spikes penetrate the growing medium and exit the bottom of the basket. Naturally if they are grown in plastic pots they can't get through. Obviously I wasn't going to get the plant out of the basket and manage to keep both of them in one piece which is a shame, as I like to re-use materials where I can. In the end I cut the basket apart to release the root ball. I had to leave some fragments of it in places but it won't cause any harm. I have put the plant, carefully angled, in a twelve inch basket filled with a mix of sphagnum moss and medium bark. I have used a coir liner so that the flower spikes can penetrate (hopeful, I know!)

Looks quite at home already, doesn't it? I realize the basket is quite big, but this plant seems to grow very quickly when it has a mind to, so I imagine it won't be long before even this basket is full. It put out five large new growths this year, as well as two small ones from the back of the plant, and the new growths are just starting to produce roots, so it should establish nice and fast. It essentially hasn't been disturbed at all as the existing roots looked healthy so I didn't remove any of the old potting medium. Seemed no sense in arresting its growth now.

Bloom Event - Miltonia clowesii

I know I've been a bit quiet on here for a couple of weeks. There hasn't been a lot to report, really. Most orchid growers will tell you that summer is a definite dry spell for blooming orchids, and my collection is no exception. That's not to say its completely barren and there are a few in the pipeline, but they aren't queueing up as they do at other times of the year.

So I am doubly thankful that the Miltonia species have decided to grace me with their flowers at this time. I posted about Miltonia spectabilis var. moreliana at the weekend, so now the focus moves to Miltonia clowesii. My plant is still very young (I got it from the Quinta da Boa Vista Garden on Madeira back in February), and I know it can reach quite a size when it is all grown up, but it has still put out a flower spike for me bearing four flowers, one of which is now fully open. I'm quite surprised that it has decided to bloom, at least partly because it is usually cited as a cool grower. This species seems quite adaptable to warmer conditions, as is often the case with the many species that either have a wide geographical range or occur at a range of elevations.

My plant is growing in the 9cm pot that I originally put it in back in February. Once new growth starts again, I will put it in a wider, shallower pot as this is another shallow rooted scrambling species although it is better behaved than its cousin, Miltonia spectabilis. Miltonia clowesii, along with many of the other Brazilian Miltonia species, appreciates being growin in bright light, as bright as that for Cattleya. Under these conditions the plants tend to take on a yellowish cast which would normally be a warning sign but for Miltonia this simply means they are getting the correct amount of light. Lower light results in lovely green foliage but no flowers. Even moisture is essential at all times, and the plant does not like to dry out.

The picture shows quite nicely the yellowish colour. It is good to know that my lighting system is sufficient to both bloom Vandas and Cattleyas, and to turn my Miltonia a healthy (unhealthy looking) colour. All this without burning any foliage. Under natural light, it can be very difficult to give plants enough light without burning them which is why a lot of growers either have lovely healthy looking lush green plants that don't bloom well or tatty yellowed and wrinkled half dead looking plants that look ugly but bloom brilliantly. The true skill in growing orchids lies in striking a balance between good looking plants and decent flowering.

The thin foliage on Miltonia can often be a target for bugs such as red spider mite, and the yellowish foliage can easily mask such damage. Maintaining high levels of humidity and having strong air movement over the plants helps to discourage them, and the regular sprayings of soap solution kill off any strays that do make it to the plants.

Such a beautiful flower. I really like the contrast between the petals and the lip. As an added bonus, there is a sweet scent. It's not a room-filliing scent, but very pleasant indeed. This seems a nice form of the species and I am proud to have it in my collection. I will genuinely look forward to seeing it bloom to its full potential. It just goes to show that many easy growing and very beautiful orchids are totally overlooked by the horticultural industry, and this is a classic example.

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 - Cymbidium chloranthum

I've never been a big grower of Cymbidium because I've never had a cool greenhouse to keep them in. Don't get me wrong, I love them.  Sadly, all Cymbidium you see for sale in garden centres are cool growers and don't even make particularly good houseplants, partly because many of them are simply too big and unweildy to accommodate and secondly because they don't do well modern centrally heated houses where the temperature is too high, the humidity is not high enough and the light levels are too low. They grow OK (ish), but its hard to get them to flower. A lot of growers put them outside for the summer to give them the cool nights they need to bloom, but I have never had good success with this. Either they get sunburn, blown around by the wind, or they pick up every pest under the sun. And after all that, if they are bought in when they are in spike, quite often buds will drop off in response to the change in conditions.

So, I was condemned to enjoying these beautiful flowers vicariously. However, it turns out that not all Cymbidum were born equal. Some of them come from lower elevations and warmer countries and positively thrive in tropical conditions. Cymbidium chloranthum is one, although there are quite a few others. The flower is not so dazzlingly beautiful as some of its cooler growing cousins. This is at least partly because they haven't been hybridized so much (and there aren't many Cymbidum growers in the UK; it seems to be an Australian thing).

It's a daintly little thing. The flowers remind me rather of some of the Maxillaria species (they are vaguely related) with the lateral petals thrust forward. I particularly like the red and yellow markings on the lip. The flower spike is roughly the same height as the leaves. I read elsewhere that the flowers carry no perfume but I think there is a faint scent. Vegetatively, the plant resembles any other Cymbidium (a good deal smaller than most, but not what you'd call a small plant compared to other orchids) with stout pseudobulbs completely encased by leaf sheaths and sword shaped stiff leaves on top.

I got the plant from Orchid Botanics (link to the right) at the same show at which I purchased Coelogyne salvaneraniana as a flowering size plant and now it is at the right stage of its growth cycle it has put up a spike. I was very pleased to see flower buds as my experience with other Cymbidium has rather put me off them. I'm very glad I got this plant though, as it seems like it needs no particular cajolement to bloom. There seem to be a decent amount of blooms for the size of the plant, and one with multiple spikes (or this one in a couple of years) will be quite an impressive sight.

Once it has bloomed, I will probably re-pot this as it is quite close to the edge of the pot (furthest away in this photo) and Cymbidium are known for their rather robust root systems. Also I haven't had this plant out of its pot and examined the roots since I got it so I imagine the potting medium will need to be changed. All in all, an inspired purchas, I think.

On to an unrelated matter.  I have set up a Facebook page for Kev's Orchids where I will be (indeed, I already am) posting more day-to-day stuff such as emerging flower spikes, new growth, etc as it isn't so easy to get that stuff onto the blog while keeping it coherent. I really do encourage you to check it out and hopefully give me a 'like' to keep yourself up to date with whats going in in that growroom. I will try to get a link to it on the front page, too (that'll be fun).

Bloom Event - Coelogyne celebensis and Dendrochilum latifolium

Here I go again with my Coelogyne obsession. I got this plant from Schwerter Orchids in Germany earlier in the year, and it is now blessing me with flowers. I think I recall that when I got the plant there were three new growths coming up. All three of them produced a flower spike, but the first spike got damaged (grower clumsiness) it turns out they are very delicate when they are first emerging. The second spike is now in flower and there is another behind that. The plant seems very robust, though it does not grow quickly.

The flower is superficially reminiscent of C. speciosa with a distinctly insect like appearance. However, the spike is more erect and the flower doesn't nod so much so its easier to see into it. There is a delicate and quite pleasant fragrance. Flowers are produced sequentially and appear fairly long lasting so flowering period should be long.

The thin petals are well reflexed and point backward. The whole flower is much greener than the photos suggest and I find the colour combination and lip detail very pleasing indeed.

As you can see, the plant is very much like a smaller sized C. speciosa. Its sort of daintier. You may also notice if you clicked the link to read the post from February when this arrived that it has been repotted since then. Notice also that there are lots of new roots already in the new pot. Even if there isn't much top growth I like to see the roots doing something, hence I'm pleased with this plant. It Hopefully it will continue to throw multiple growths and will become a nice dense clump with plenty of flowers in future.

Also in flower is Dendrochilum latifolium. To my eye at least, it is superficially similar to D. magnum  but taller and slimmer. The leaves are longer but narrower and the flower spikes a bit taller.

The flowers are a nice shade of yellow and carry a pleasing and slightly spicy fragrance.  I only got one flower spike off four new growths, but as it is the first blooming for me I guess I should excercise patience and wait for it to settle in properly.

Notice the flowers arranged in two ranks in a loose spiral round the stem, and also the very prominent floral bracts. A very elegant species indeed. Flowers last a fair amount of time (maybe three weeks) and remain in good condition until they fade (you know how some flowers look tatty long before they fall from the plant).