Time for an orchid blog post!

I'm definitely overdue for a blog post before we hit August! It's been a pretty hot summer here in Toronto. I finally took some time to do a much-needed tidying up of my orchid nook last weekend. I had gotten rid of some dead plants I was leaving lying around for who-knows what reason. It's not like they were going to come back to life! Anyways, I've been meaning to blog about this for ages, so I'll start this blog post with the rather depressing list of plants I have killed - not a comprehensive list - just in the last couple of years:

Bulbophyllum lasiochilum :(
Cattleya forbesii
Cattleya polkay tangerine x
Octomeria gracilis
Paphiopedilum bellatulum
Phalaenopsis equestris
Pleurothallis phallangifera

In fact, in my little orchid spreadsheet, the list of orchids I have killed is now noticeably longer than the list of orchids I own that are currently alive (which is roughly about two dozen)! I did a quick calculation of purchase price too, I've probably killed close to $500 worth of orchids!! Jeez, that's an expensive hobby! Good thing I'm doing well on my 2011 new year resolution not to buy any orchids this year!

I also have identified a top five list of orchids I have that have never bloomed and that I would love to get to bloom in the coming year. They are:

Epidendrum polybulbon
Maxillaria tenuifolia
Paphiopedilum venustrum alba
Phragmipedium sorcerer's apprentice
Sedirea japonica


As I mentioned above, I did some cleaning and tidying of my kitchen orchid nook last weekend, so I'm attaching a picture of the newly arranged area. I still plan on buying a couple baskets from Ikea to store the stuff on the bottom shelf. I also removed 5 huge keikis from my Dendrobium kingianum and potted them up individually as well as one keiki from my Dendrobium monoliforme!