Orchids

[vharrison]

We went to an Orchid show in Key West yesterday and picked up a few orchids for our garden. Here is what is blooming at our house.

 

[woodworkingboy]

Paradise! Is it difficult to maintain orchids?

 

[vharrison]

No, once they have wrapped their roots around the tree, they are on their own.

 

[Mrs.B]

They're beautiful!

 

[sotc]

no wonder ours always die, we dont have indoor trees for them beautiful gigi

 

[Che]

no wonder ours always die, we dont have indoor trees for them beautiful gigi

That must have been my problem, too. Who knew!?

They're beautiful, Gigi. I'm very jealous.

 

[stehansen]

Beautiful V.

 

[blue]

Nice,my wife has a thing for orchids.We have a few but none are flowering at the moment.
I've got some nice pics of some from Kew Gardens if ya want me to post them?

 

[sotc]

heck yeah, this is an orchid thread!

 

[blue]

Okily Dokely

 

[TheTreeWiseMen]

Cool pics. I assume you guys know that there are more types of orchid than any other flower.

 

[MasterBlaster]

I've often thought I should use my growroom expertise to try growing orchids for some minor profit. It would be cool to sell them.

 

[Labour of Love]

Here are pix of what are blooming indoors for me (terrestrials rather than epiphytes). All are Epidendrum radicans, some are hybrids, some are not.

 

[MasterBlaster]

They grow like that in low light?

 

[Labour of Love]

They grow like that in low light?

They are in South-facing windows and most will bloom for AT LEAST 3 to 4 months. They hybrid purple one has not been out of bloom for over a year. Epis of the sort that I grow are small-flowered and are cluster bloomers - opening a few blooms at a time over a long period of time. I have a total of 15 colors: 8 are blooming now, 3 have recently finished up and the remainder have bloom spikes in varying stages of development.

They are popular outdoor plants in the tropics. The old-fashioned sorts are kind of leggy and sprawl-y - perfect for a wild garden area. The hybrids have been bred for less height and shorter spaces between internodes as well as for unusual colors.

Here are pictures (before & after) of some mixed in with other plants in a commercial planting that replaced a non-functioning water feature. I did this about 2 months ago in South Florida at an Outback restaurant.

 

[Mr. Sir]

Nice job! BTW, how does a gal from the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont get a job like that in south Florida?

 

[jamie]

A common spotted orchid, the picture was taken on teh isle of Skye, my good lady was stomping off on teh 8mile return over the hills when i spotted this.

jamie

 

[Che]

VERY cool! I've never seen anything quite like this one:

 

[Mr. Sir]

Very anthropomorphic!

It looks like a cartoon character.

 

[Labour of Love]

Nice job! BTW, how does a gal from the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont get a job like that in south Florida?

I grew up in S. Florida and don't want to lose my tropical chops, so I go down there every year to cut trees and do some landscaping for a few clients (when it's all froze up at home). There is also a great tropical plant trade show in Ft. Lauderdale every January that I arrange my work schedule around.

You all would be proud of me, I dropped a 70' pine into a 6' wide corridor/drop zone that was bounded on both sides by sprinkler systems and other landscaping. Also managed to miss the orange tree at the very tip of that 70' by less than a foot. Talk about tight. Not climbable either, struck by lightning and (scarey) stone dead. The down side of working alone is the inability to take action pix.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

WTG!!!!

 

[gf beranek]

We have a few native orchids here, but only one that is showy. The rest are non-descript.

 

[blue]

Some of my wife's

 

[blue]

And some more from Kew

 

[vharrison]

She has a beautiful collection!