New year orchids

Well, we are fairly well into the new year, but since this is my first post of 2007, here is a picture of my first orchid to come into bloom this year. This is a Wilsonara Lisa Devos, and the last time it bloomed was May 2005!



This is a bit of good news among some orchid disappointments I have had lately. Most notably my Phal. schilleriana died. It was a fairly small plant, with just two leaves and a third new leaf that was doing well. I think it was too wet, and we had a significant temperature drop and one by one all the leaves just fell off and the root mass dried up.

To cheer myself up, I decided to bid on an orchid on ebay. Oh, what a lovely Paph. hybrid it was, a green one that I had had my eyes on for awhile. This particular hybrid was a Mystic Jewel. I learned an important lesson, however. When my package arrived and I opened the box to find my new prized possession, I discovered to my horror that the plant was entirely non-green in colour, and looking fairly limp. Moreover, when I unwrapped the roots, they were moldy. Turns out the plant likely froze in transit. I had made sure to request that the plant be shipped with a heat pack, hoping to avoid this problem, but it didn't help. The pix are fairly depressing but you can view them here.

More encouragingly, I noticed yesterday that an orchid I have that has never bloomed before, purchased August 2005 as near bloom size, has a spike on it. It's a Brsda. Orange Delight HCC/AOS and I am very excited to see the flowers. And to remind myself of past successes my orchid accomplishment of last year has to be blooming the Dracula vampira.

Sasha and I have ordered some orchids from Brazil and they should hopefully be arriving in February! Crossing my fingers that they survive the journey.