Orchid Man in the United Kingdom

Oh my, oh my, oh my! It's 2019 and i still didn't come up with a orchid wishlist. In fact mostly because I'm very happy with all of the orchids I currently have and it's only a small number of 39 plants. This years decision was quality over quantity. However there is still a few plants id love to have. Neofinetia falcata  Myeongwol 明月 Neofinetia falcata Chouko  Paphiopedilum Lippewunder Paphiopedilum Lippwunder "Matsumi"

Neofinetia orchids are a genus of the orchid family, related to vanda family. This genus in total combines of 3 species, three found in China, two in Korea and one in Japan. But it’s the single Japanese species that is the prise jewel of the family and on this one species – Neofinetia falcata I will concentrate. A lot of material contained in this entry comes from external sources that will be listed at the bottom for reference. Neofinetia falcata starts shrouded in a local myth. The orchid is known under two names, Furan – meaning Wind orchid or the Samurai Orchid. It’s claimed that Shogun Tokugawa lenari fell in love with the plant and its beauty and a samurai was sent to help in searching and collecting the plants from the mountains. It is arguably the first orchid ever to be grown with intention as a house plant from the early 1600s in Japan. Furan, the Japanese name for “Neofinetia falcata,” started to be replaced by ‘Fuuki-ran’ meaning ‘the rich and nobl...

Brassavolas are one of the very old, showy orchids, with a almost Victorian charm to them. Bearing a single star shaped flower, which has a heavy late evening perfume to it. This beautiful species was originally classified and named in 1813 by Robert Brown, who was a Scottish botanist, and he dedicated the species name to the famous Italian physician and scientist Antonio Musa Brassavola. That's that about history, let's get back to the matter at hand, Brassavola David Sander hybrid is a child of Brassavola cuculata and Brassavola digbyana. It combines the beauty of both. It hold the wide star spread petals of b.cuculata, and the delicate feathery fringe from digbyana. The hybrid has the typical and lovely brassavola foliage that reminds me of pine needles, or how growers call them "pencils". And they are lovely this way. Something peculiar about their beauty and elegant shape, why? Cattleyas have a tendency to be very ugly plants when not in flower. The foli...

You may say to me I'm obsessed about this type of phalaenopsis and the truth is I am. I fell in love with the colourful waxy hybrids of the Happy Eagle type. I describe them this way because they really remind me of the precursor in the way the bloom. Something a bit like phalaenopsis Bellina, but the colours are different, the fragrance is more fruity and heady. They are also so much more vigorous, happy and resistant to damage, pests and disease. Especially the phalaenopsis Dragon Tree Eagle, actually it was a mistake when I ordered it. I wanted the Happy Eagle and I choose this one. I don’t know why. Probably because there is so much Eagles around it’s hard to get confused. So I did. This one is a hybrid between Phalaenopsis Penang Girl x Phalaenopsis Black Eagle, and it can come in a variety of different colour coordinations. And now it’s in flower and I absolutely love it. The plant so far is quite small meaning it’s young enough but it looks like I...

Sometimes, very rarely you can find a real gem in your standard boring plant nursery or supermarket. One of these gem's is Phalaenopsis Frontera, which is an absolute marvelous plant. Usually when growers manipulate the plant genes the results can be plain boring, or just a massive mish mash of all the colours and patterns you can find, some of them just being plain horrible and I have seen plants that their colours because of the bad cross, looking like a mix of ketchup and mustard - yes, that's a bad colour on a plant. Unfortunatelly for this beautiful it's very hard to find any information on when it was registered and released to public trade. However, the plant has a lot of rare and beautiful qualities. Firstly, it's very vigorous and it blooms with long and flower heavy spikes. The flowers can also carry a sweet honey fragrance it the plant is happy. As a typical complex Phalaenopsis hybrid its very easy to care for taking intermediate home temp...

Hi Everyone. For those of you who aren't comfortable in reading off the screen and just want to see and listen to stuff I made a Youtube Video on the topic of semi hydroponics. I hope you will enjoy and it will prove useful.

Phaleonopsis KS Happy Eagle X Princess Kailuani is not a new hybrid to start. Firstly because it has been around since the KS Happy Eagle has been introduced in 2009 and taking the spotlight with a storm. But it is new in terms of novelty especially in Europe, mostly because it took a few years to get the first hybrids done and then to continue the work. But the hybrid didn't get a permanent name like so many others did. Why? Because genetics can be very tricky in terms of non clonned phalaeonopsis and the variability of the flowers meant there would be naming problems. But in the world of the orchid grower variability is a blessing.  I absolutely love this hybrid because of its variety, vigour and fragrance. Having two plants from a different batch I can say there is many differences in their size, leaf shape and so on. But each one of the sisters (heck because they are Princesses) is so different and the colours are so saturated they are quite difficult to capture by...

Vanda orchids always seemed like the tricky kind to me. Absolutely beautiful, obviously not compact, at the same time a bit awkward to grow and very confusing. Here in the UK growing Vanda orchids doesn't seem like the obvious choice, the weather can be patchy and unpredictable. Full sun is hard to come by, nobody is going to hang a plant outside in the summer, and there is as I thought, too much possible complications. But, obviously I was wrong I despise all this I bought a Vanda, a blue one, wonderful colour. It grew well, bigger and bigger. I found a solution for growing, a glass juice jar and a sunny windowsill. But, truly you won't know if all of this is good enough till the plant pits out a flower spike, and so it did. It's such a hefty and wonderful plant. You can see the rest here:

Oh my, my look what is blooming for me right now and I can't take my eyes of it! Beautiful phaleonopsis hybrid phal. KS Happy eagle X phal. Princess Kailuani. This is such a lovely and unique hybrid, the colours are out of this world vibrant and radiant. As you can imagine it's a fairly easy warm growing plant, which I'm growing in Semi hydroponics and it seems to be enjoying it very much. What's not to love? It's stunning. Here is a video from my YouTube channel for you to see.