Cymbidium “Stargate”

Beautiful cymbidium flowering at the moment, masses of huge, dreamy flowers. “Stargate” been with me for quite a few moons and I love seeing it in bloom each season.

Flowering cymbidium orchids - NOID

Most of my cymbidium orchids in bloom at the moment, bringing with them kaleidoscope of colors, scents and textures. While a lot of my time taken to catalog, document and record any orchid’s id, some of them kind of sneak in to my collection and happily bloom year after year without proper identification.
 Sometimes I wish I knew who created these orchids, because one can see breeders hand in painstaking selection of material and here in Australia we have many dedicated orchid breeders who constantly working in improving quality of plants and they deserve recognition.

Spots and lines and colors and structures and scents and textures on these orchids do not happen by accident - one can see breeders thoughts and ideas and hopes and dreams as they create and select plants just like an artist with paint brush trying many combinations, performing an alchemy with  living orchids plants. 

Flowering phalaenopsis

phalaenopsis orchid

One of my phal. orchids blooming now, love it’s abundance of flowers and interesting, dramatic colors. This orchid seems to be flowering most of the year and new flower buds developing all the time.

It came to me a few years back to be “rescued” from what I remember in a rather poor state but it did not take long for it to recover and start growing nice leaves, then flower spikes and then producing flowers. If ever you come across leafless, shriveled dried up orchid - have a go and try to revive it, try to get it growing again and it may reward you with beautiful blooms for many years to come.

Degarmoara orchids "Flying High" and "Skywalker Red Star" HCC-AOS

dgmra. Flying High

dgmra. Skywalker Red Star HCC-AOS

My Dgmra. orchids in bloom at the moment, they are inter-generic hybrids between miltonia x brassica x odondontoglossum and these days many beautiful crosses been developed. They considered being part of oncidium alliance and some of the easiest orchids to grow.

My dgmra. Flying High flowers twice a year, have long lasting blooms and dgmra. Skywalker Red Star HCC-AOS have large red shaped flowers. They are beautiful orchids, very distinct in their appearance.

I find them easy to grow providing they can have bright light, plenty of moisture during growing time with just occasional misting in winter and plenty of air movement and they always delight me with their beautiful flowers in our winter time.

Dendrobium x suffusum

Dendrobium suffusum

This little Australian native orchid currently flowering - it’s dendrobium x suffusum, natural hybrid between dendrobium kingianum and dendrobium gracilicaule. It’s a medium size plant with many small flowers and very sweet scent.

Being native orchid, it happily flowers year after year without any special requirements - it likes plenty of light, plenty of moisture during spring and autumn and a bit dryer in summer.
The color of the flowers ranges from white through various shades of pink and I have seen dark, deep mauve color of this orchid as well.

 Because if it’s adaptability, this specie can be grown in a wide range of situations always rewarding with many beautiful blooms.

First cattleyas in flower

Now, that’s it’s getting a bit cooler in our part of the world, couple of my first cattleya orchids started flowering. These two orchids been with me for many many moons and I don’t even remember how they  came to me, yet every year without a fail they are the first one’s to bloom.

They one’s of the  “old fashioned” one’s, most of the cattleya’s one see these days have fuller flowers, more blooms and generally more compact plants - these one’s more lanky with occasional blooms, yet they have beauty all of their own and I love their strong colors. They also have quite strong scents - the red one smells like “tutti - frutti” and the darker purple one have very strong herbal scent with a bit of acetone in the background, not unpleasant, just different.

Some of my other orchids started waking up after the hot summer spell and many of them started developing flower spikes, so I’ll be featuring them soon in this blog.

Gongora gratulabunda orchid

I’ve been taking a break from blogging but now hopefully back with more posts about some beautiful orchids. In the past couple of months our weather here been really challenging - first with unusually very hot and humid summer that just went on and on and on and then non-stop rains and thunderstorms and winds creating a bit of a havoc in the garden and orchid house. Cleaning, re potting, sorting out and general maintenance of my plants been priority and now that the cooler weather finally arrived I can feature some of my orchids again in this blog. We must of gone through some specific sun-spot cycle or solar-storm activity, because the energy during that time felt unbelievably strong and raw.

One of my orchids that just finished it’s flowering is gongora gratulabunda - fascinating orchid native to Colombia. It flowers with masses small unusual flowers and have the most heavenly strong scent reminiscent of herbs and spices - one can smell cinnamon and thyme and myrrh and anise and all spice and fennel and saffron and there are some sweetness in the scent’s background making it very strong and pleasant.

This orchid need to grow in the hanging basket, so it can send long spikes about 1 meter long down on the side of the planter . It’s a special, strongly perfumed orchid and I am delighted seeing this beauty in flower.

gongora gratulabunda1

gongora gratulabunda

Odm. bictoniense x Wils. Bonne Nuit

This beautiful orchid finally decided to bloom this season, it's complicated cross between closely related genera and been with me for a number of years, yet this is the first time I've seen it's flowers. It went backwoods on me a few times, but each time somehow revived itself.

It's not an easy orchid to grow - because it seems to require constant moisture, but not being soggy, bright but indirect light, dislike extreme temperatures, loves high humidity yet needs gentle breeze. If any of these conditions not met it's just not flowering and I am forever learning with this one.

I love colors combinations, the big showy blooms, the heavenly scent that reminds of many exotic spices and delighted finally to see it in flower.

Rare orchid discovered on the Council’s rooftop

Tiny green-winged orchid was discovered recently by Islington Council workers on the green roof of the Household Reuse and Recycling Centre  in Holloway, UK. Very unusual situation because for this orchid to germinate and produce flowers all the right conditions have to be met - and here this rare orchid decided that rooftop of the Council is the best place for it to grow.

This discovery got all orchid specialists and enthusiasts very exited, since this particular orchid specie haven't been seen or spotted in the area for the past 100 years, it take number of years to germinate and was first recorded by Charles Darwin in London area.

This specie went to decline because it require hay meadow habitat that has been lost due to agricultural intensification, yet somehow Nature decided to give it another chance, on Islington's Council rooftop.

Long Live and multiply Anacamptis morio ( it's Latin Name)  !!!
(Photo - Islington Council)

Phalaenopsis orchids in flower

Some of my phal's flowering at the moment, showing off many colors and textures combinations. They are easy to grow, to bring to flower and they stay in bloom for a very long time.

We are in between orchid flowering season here and pha's always fit nicely during the time when some of my orchids finished their flowering and others not blooming yet, delighting with their kaleidoscope of colors. 

Dendrobium thrysiflorum in bloom

This dendrobium orchid just finished flowering - usually it flowers with a couple of flower spikes, but this year it gave 12 flower spikes, all perfectly formed - masses of flowers hanging everywhere!

Phaelenopsis orchid - finally bloomed

While majority of my orchids are resting during our hot and humid summer this phaelenopsis orchid blooming with all of it's profusion.

Some years ago I got this small "experimental" seedling just to see if I can bring it to flower. It have spent number of years on the back bench and I've been patiently waiting for it finally mature.  I have no idea what was crossed with what, but I think it's actually turned out quite a nice orchid.