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.
Vandas on summer vacation
Finally it is time for some summer vacation!! The vandas had to come with us to the summer house since they require daily watering. And why not? After bringing one (the princess Mikasa) on ski vacation last winter, I figured that all of them deserved a few weeks at a nice little red cottage by the coast for summer.... It has been a lot to do leading up to vacation - as usual - so the [...]
Technical difficulties…
I am having some problems with a few plugins on the site after doing the latest Wordpress (the blogging software) 2.8 upgrade. As much as it really sucks, I am working on figuring out what went wrong and how to work around it. Until then the images might not work as desired - popping up as new windows instead of lightboxes, not enlarging as they are supposed to etc. etc. etc. Thanks for being patient!
There she goes again…
The beautiful and fragrant first flower faded just a few days ago, and there she goes again... Bud number two from the lovely Ms. Phalaenopsis bellina has started to open. And just like the song (apparently inspired by a seductive street walker), she is indeed quite seductive - although I would definitely not call her a streetwalker. This lady has class! There is something uniquely special about orchid flowers when they are just about to open up. They seem so erotic and vulnerable [...]
A few more flask babies out of the nest
This weekend the remaining Cattleya schilleriana flask babies moved out of the community pot to single occupancy dwellings. Since I mounted the first few babies several months ago and placed them in the warm vivarium, I wanted to try growing these in intermediate conditions. I mounted the strongest one and hung it in the window, the remaining little ones went into pots. Since schilleriana likes well drained media I placed them in tiny plastic mesh pots for good ventilation, then bark, [...]
Installing new floors in the mini-greenhouses…
Wow, with a title like that it sounds as if it was a major undertaking... it wasn't. I just had the dear husband cut the panels to size for me - lol! Then I just plopped the smaller pieces in place. I am using the plastic grid panels that used to come in fluorescent light fixtures in the 80's (70's?). But since Sweden has long done away with such ancient design, I had to "import" them from [...]
An orchid with “drulleförsäkring”
You just have to love orchids that come with full "drulleförsäkring" (liability insurance for clumsy people, or clumsiness insurance for short). My dear Phalaenopsis Marbella is such an orchid. This little lady is flowering right now, but it almost was not to be this year. I managed to break the flower spike when watering earlier this spring and was really upset about it too (DANG!! ) But, after just one a month in rehab she came [...]