- Pictures
While on our Honeymoon in Hawaii, Dianne and I visited a grower. We were enchanted and had 2 dendrobium "50th state" plants shipped to us at home. That was a start, but what got me excited about orchids, was that one of them re-bloomed.
Now this plant did not re-bloom because I took such good care of it. I had it sitting on my desk at work in a convenient location under some florescent lights. It got water irregularly and no feeding.
My theory is that the plant figured that it was going to die soon, so it had better put out a couple of flowers soon, or the species would face extinction. It put out a spike with 3 blooms.
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Restrepia elegans |
That got my interest, and I went to a class at our Rec center here in Napa. I learned "weakly weekly" and lots of other bits of useful orchid information from Debra Atwood at Napa Valley Orchids. In the summer, my plants were mostly outdoors, but in the winter they came in. Their winter home was an upstairs bedroom that used to be the guest bedroom, now renamed the orchid room, and not because of the color of the walls. Now I am growing in the greenhouse and they seem very happy. They are blooming like crazy with new spikes to be found daily. So here I am with about 450 plants. I am a member of the Sonoma County Orchid Society, the San Francisco Orchid Society and the American Orchid Society. I am learning a lot. I have a number of duplicates and excess plants. If you want one of the plants listed as excess or for sale, send an e-mail. |
