This is another purchase from my big Peru Flora order this spring… I grow it potted in a plastic mesh pot with EpiWeb substrate in the lower half of the cool vivarium. It has been blooming all summer and is still going strong, usually with 2-3 flowers open at a time. Each inflorescence produces more than one pendulous flower in succession and they last for a […]
This orchid came in my Peru Flora order back in April and it just finished blooming for me. A nice blooming for such a small plant with about 4-5 flowers at a time for about a month. The flowers do not last for very long, perhaps a week, but it is a sequential bloomer so you get several flowers per inflorescence. I really like the […]
Ok… I think it is time for a photo update of the cool vivarium. It is really starting to fill in now and I am quite pleased with how the viv is performing!! If you are curious to see exactly what orchids I am growing in there so far, you can look at this photo on Flickr instead. I have put up little notes on the photo labeling the orchids in it, just mouse […]
I picked up this little gem from Ecuagenera at the Sofiero orchid show in May and it obviously did not object over the long journey from South America since it is already blooming. I just adore this little thing… the sepals remain fused together and the flowers look like some sort of an alien… […]
I have got to admit… growing orchids is easy compared to growing moss! Well, my moss is doing just fine actually, but not without effort. All the time on the brink of drying out, and dry moss equals dead moss, so it has been a bit of a challenge. Providing enough water for the moss on the EpiWeb walls without over watering the orchids mounted on the very same walls is not easy. I believe […]
It is fungus gnat season again… sigh! They love warm wet vivariums and now it is summer with a lot warmer temperatures – which was followed by an explosive increase in fungus gnats. They look like a small mosquito and some mistake them for the harmless common fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster). It is called Sciara hemerobioides, or dark-winged fungus gnats […]
This is a nice little cool growing Dracula from the cloud forests of Costa Rica and Panama where it grows at altitudes up to 1100 to 2100 meters. The flower measures approximately 5 cm so it is quite large in relation to the plant. It will produce about 2-3 flowers per inflorescence, […]
I have recently become quite fascinated with Lepanthes, a very interesting large genus with ith about 700 species of strange looking flowers with neat colorations. I chose caprimulgus as my first Lepanthes because I love the stripes, and seeing it in bloom for the first time is very exciting!! I just bought it from […]
This is a miniature epiphyte from Peru and Ecuador where it grows at elevations of 1500 to 1900 meters. It is a fast growing caespitose species, which means that it forms dense tufts. I grow it mounted on EpiWeb in the cool vivarium at medium light levels. The plant is definitely best displayed mounted, when potted it was really hard to see the flowers […]
Alright… the past few weeks have been very eventful in the orchid department, but I have also been extremely busy at work and I have not had time to write about everything that has been going on, mainly the cool vivarium build… but here we go.
Last time I checked in I had just installed the Vivaria rain system. I have since moved it twice…he he. Well, originally I had placed three nozzles along the top and […]
