Orchid Man in the United Kingdom

Be warned, this entry will be written from a perspective of a person who is trying to grow these beautiful orchids in a Northern Hemisphere climate, not hanging, on cork, wood or any magical way. Just my windowsill. You have been warned. So now let’s talk Vandas! Anyone who saw them know they are amazing, beautiful, also big and their flowers come in the most amazing flowers that last for ages, and can have a wonderful fragrance! The name Vanda itself describes a group of species within the orchid family that combines around 80+ species of plants with various names, which sometimes can confuse us if they are Vandas or not. The Vanda was discovered in 1613 by Alvin Semedo, who called it ‘tiao hua’ or ‘air plant’. The aerial roots act as sponges and can rapidly absorb a great deal of moisture. These roots also ensure that the plant remains firmly anchored to the tree on which it is growing. The name Vanda itself is derived from Sanskrit. These plants are mostly epip...

Dear all! I am more than happy to announce we have now a super loving and happy orchids growers on Facebook and are welcoming anyone who is Living in the UK and looking to learn, make friends and be a happy chappy! Come and Join us! You can find the Group on Facebook by looking for : Growing Orchids in the UK or by clicking the below link: Growing Orchids in the UK

When you start growing your orchids and your collection is pretty small its always best to keep to the safe and tried out method. Bark and stuff, you also have sphagnum moss people and full water culture. Everyone grows their plants differently. I am no different and I am sure, my dear reader, you are also. After 8 years of mixed bark medium I couldn't have been happier with the results, till I got a plague of fungus gnats. I mean a plague, nothing worked, you got these buggers everywhere including wardrobes. So I pursued my love for pebbles. Seriously. Semi hydroponics has been a blessing. Let me explain quickly what is semi-hydro: As mentioned on Wikipedia: Semi hydroponics also known as passive hydroponics is a method of growing plants without soil, peat moss, or bark. Instead an inert porous medium transports water and fertiliser to the roots by capillary action. Water and fertiliser are held in a reservoir and conducted to the roots as necessary, reducing...

For a very, very long time I had only concentrated on growing one genus of orchids: Paphiopedilum, but then I kind of made some room for Phragmipedium. Other type of orchids were just not my cup of tea you see, and some of the reasons were quite trivial, cattleyas because I couldn't get them to bloom, phalaeonopsis, well because everyone had them and they just lost the wow factor for me. There were other like cycnodes, which I completely don't like and i find the whole rest routine a massive pain in my spine. And also oncidium because the ones available near me were just meh ugly, and my poor Aliceara was having a hard non blooming time. But then we moved, to a nicer house, with more room. In the January of this year i made a super special effort to get the cattleya to bloom because it was a gift from my other half so i decided I really have to. The results were spectacular, so I got adventurous. As I said, I made some room for phragmipedium. Suddenly I found an oncidium ...

https://youtu.be/QMADgIzKZKE

Dear all, In this entry I wanted to address the topic of Repotting phragmipedium orchids. And let's face it, it can seem like a daunting task for a beginner or just if you don't know what are the options. Therefore I would love to invite you to the below video where I talk in length about this: https://youtu.be/TFNH32qVYws

https://youtu.be/cOfZptSEFcU

https://youtu.be/R66AfTdC_Uc

Dear readers, I am incredibly happy to show you how my rare and marvelous Paphiopedilum Bidburough has been doing, and indeed it has done extremely well! You can tell this one has received a lot of awards, including vigor as i call it a weed. It grows like mad and doesn't require any excessive care. I would love to invite you to watch my below video where I talk in length on this: https://youtu.be/mwfCHFUrQaQ

https://youtu.be/tC3MwIvLSdo

Dear readers, I am incredibly happy to show you how my rare and marvelous Paphiopedilum Bidburough has been doing, and indeed it has done extremely well! You can tell this one has received a lot of awards, including vigor as i call it a weed. It grows like mad and doesn't require any excessive care. The two flowers are not the only surprise, as it has produced 4 in total this year and they are just opening now. Which is surprising. I can say the double spike is slightly shorter than the single one I had last year, but then the third that is just opening now is taller than both of these ones. Interesting indeed.

Dear readers, I am so happy to provide an update on my Tropical Pointer "Galaxy". And an apology for my earlier post about the care on this guy. Why? Well for 3 years I have been growing this plant with no result, till i had only one choice - neglect the hell out of this plant. Almost literally, so it went out on the balcony from April till late October, and experienced a lot of temperature changes and especially the late summer and autumn drastic drops down to 10C and even lower as the last weeks it was around 8 degrees Celsius. And that was the time when i noticed the sheath has buds in. As you can see the result is stunning and I am more than happy with this beauty. No longer I have been thinking this will be going on sale. I think the biggest reason for me to keep this for so long, it was a birthday gift from my other half and i decided to do my best to make this bloom.

I'm a bit of a snob, truly. I like my hybrids with a name, unless there is something i picked up at random and I failed miserably to discover it's name - then it's OK. But in this case i purposely went to Orchideen Wichmann, one of my favorite German orchid nurseries to find something special for myself for Christmas. And indeed I have, this compact beauty which name's a mouthful is a result of very successful hybridization from the old hybrids. The exact hybrids are Paphiopedilum Lancer, Paphiopedilum Blagrose and famous Paphiopedilum Winston Churchill "Redoutable" The hybrid lost the spotting but it gained the magnificent waterfall pattern on the dorsal pouch and deep deep magenta/purple color. The size of the flower is descent and sits in almost 7 wide and 6 inches high. I say almost as I am sure some results of the same cross may be bigger or smaller, the magic of paphiopedilum crossing and not cloning. As I have mentioned earlier this is a compact...