Orchid blog
This blog is dormant at the moment, but it is still getting a lot of visitis so I will keep it up for you guys as a resource. My future adventures will be published on my new blog, hope to see you there!
My focus… if pressed to name favorites it would have to be orchids of the Pleurothallid Alliance. But a Paphiopedilum was the first orchid I ever fell in love with so slipper orchids will always be close to my heart, and while we are on the subject I might as well disclose a love affair with Neofinetia as well.
Big shower day!
Twice a year I drag in all my 100+ orchids, one by one, into the shower so I can flush through the growing media extra thoroughly. I usually rinse through the media with just clean water without any fertilizer every 4-6 weeks or so, in addition to this "big rinse". It is important to do this as excess fertilizer, minerals and salts build up in the media over time and this can harm the roots. An added bonus of the [...]
New orchid flask babies
Since most of the orchid flask babies from last summer has moved from the nursery I thought it was time for a new set of little ones. It takes time to look after the little ones, but I really enjoy following their development. Here we have the new gang from Equatorial Plants plus a bottle of Sedirea japonica seedlings I bought from Roellke at the Sofiero Orchid Show in May. I figured it was time to deflask the Sedirea as well so now the nursery is quite [...]
Cattleya forbesii
I this is one of the nicer looking Cattleyas there are. The shape and subtle coloring really appeals to me. It is a cool to warm growing medium sized Cattleya with nice long-lived, fragrant, waxy flowers. My clone does not have a very strong scent, but you can definitely smell it in the early morning when the sun warms it up. I bought this orchid earlier this summer from Orchidéhuset in Stockholm. It came with three buds already so I [...]
Dang!! Red spider mites
This sucks!!! I found red spider mites (Panonychus ulmi, or rött spinn in Swedish) on a plant I received in a trade a while back. What really upsets me is that the plant arrived infected and I did not know what to look for. I have never had to deal with spider mites before, but the horror stories I have read... sigh. I was told the plant was badly sunburned, and I never questioned that [...]
Phalaenopsis Mini Mark – a hybridization triumph
My adorable little Phalaenopsis Mini Mark 'Holm' bought from Karge in April is now finally blooming! There are two spikes with 9 buds, four of which has already opened. This is by my estimation quite possibly one of the very best man made hybrid results there are. At least in the Phalaenopsis family. The distinct shape and beautiful coloring is a triumph of mans' ingenuity. So naturally this little guy got to tag along with us on summer vacation. [...]
Nothing better than a good hack to brighten the day
I have been dreading sitting down and really figuring out how to fix all the stuff that broke when I upgraded the blog software to the latest version. Practically all the external plugins stopped working, but most developers were quick with fixes - but not the most important one, the one I use to manage photos. Kind of disturbing to be so reliant on one person/plugin to make the blogging a pleasurable and smooth operation, but since I [...]