Happy new year!

I chose to celebrate this new year with a blog facelift. The old design has been up and running since 2009, and quite frankly, it was looking a bit old and dull. So it was time for a change! Everything is still here, it just looks and works a bit different. The main blog page now show excerpts and a slide show with rather tightly cropped photos as a preview, but if you click on the blog title or on the “read more” button you will get to the single blog post page where you can see the whole photos uncut. Older posts will not have this slideshow (too much to update), so they will show no photos on the main blog page, but all photos are still there when you click in to the individual post. I am working on the “jumping” issues of the text on the posts page, hopefully it will be solved soon. I really hope you will enjoy the new look. I welcome your feedback!

My new-years-flower this year is this wonderful Neofinetia falcata ‘Yoroidoushi’, a very nice pine needle cultivar I bought from a friend in the spring of 2010. It refused to bloom until this year but now it is putting on quite a show. It gave me a nice long bloom back in October and it is now blooming again to ring in the new year. Perhaps the division needed to put on more mass to bloom, wich is has. It has grown into quite a beautiful plant I think. A lovely late blooming Neofinetia. Most cultivar tend to bloom in late spring or summer when many other orchids are focusing on growth, but alas not this one. I grow it mounted on cork in the intermediate vivarium. High humidity, but not very wet, in good air circulation and under medium-bright light. The scent, a mixture of vanilla and spices, is simply divine! I usually do not get off that much on scent personally, but Neofinetia really is in a class of its own when it comes to fragrance.

Neofinetia falcata (Thunb.) Hu, Rhodora 27: 107 (1925). This name is a synonym.
Accepted Name: Vanda falcata (Thunb.) Beer, Prakt. Stud. Orchid.: 317 (1854).