Orchid Man in the United Kingdom

  I had a few minutes of selfish brilliance when my 8 months long project slash research slash experiment had brought unexpected and exciting results. Therefore I think it’s fair I called it Rob’s Closed Curtain Cymbidium Growing and Glowering method. Yes, it is a mouthful, and a lot of people are going to rise their brows up or think – What is he going on about this time.   Well if you don’t like cymbidium orchids, or already have a greenhouse or just have your own way of growing them and flowering successfully then congratulations to you – you are welcome to skip this read. For the purpose of my project slash experiment I have divided a super cheap cymbidium NoID hybrid that I never saw in flower and was a rescue from HomeBase. This plant was super neglected and sat in the garden patio for a whole year before – and within that time it didn’t grow a single new leaf. So after dividing them, they went into self-watering pots and into sphagnum moss – now remember you...

Grammatocymbidiums are an exciting novelty that’s only very slowly found its way into Europe, and it’s still hard to find them anywhere unless you know where to look. They are a hybrid between grammatophyllums and cymbidiums. Making them basically heat tolerant cymbidiums that can flower whenever, without the need of dramatic temperature changes, cold nights, and keeping it outside all year round until first frosts just to have that hopeful flower spike. Oh no! These plants can grow comfortably on your windowsill all year round, and will flower with beautiful cymbidium flowers. Most of them are fragrant too! As I said earlier I love cymbidiums, and I could never grow them properly and flower and now with my own plant – I just got it today! Im going to try to help these beautiful hybrids to get a foothold. Just look below!

April has brought us some unusual events, full lockdown, life threating pandemic, and oddly enough on top of that nice sunny weather. Its nature’s tongue-in-the-cheek i think.  In the growth space there is a few interesting things happening, the biggest one is that neofinetias woke up and are growing rots like mad. Because the living room plant stand where they are, doesn’t get sun till after 3PM, I’m having the LED lights on through most of the morning. However, i have completely unplugged the heat mats as they were drying out the sphagnum moss way too fast and I was really worried it may be more damaging to the plants than actually doing any good. Neofinetia, at the end of the day are intermediate to cool growers I don’t want to push my luck. And there is so much to see, the three (now four) no ID neofinetias are growing like mad. One was growing so vigorously it split itself in half as the new roots were pushing the other fans away, which is interesting and I never saw...

The Slc. Jewel Box ‘Dark Waters’ is a hybrid cross of the   Cattlianthe orchid nothogenus, registered in 1962. The parents of the cross are Guarianthe aurantiaca and Cattleya anzac. Hands down one of my top 10 favorite orchids and my favorite cattleya hybrid.  Unfortunately, I find it incredibly difficult to get anywhere close to an accurate photo capture with a digital camera as reds and purples seem to be the troublesome colors.   Ctt. Jewel Box is a classic compact growing red cattleya hybrid. Bifoliate pseudobulbs that are about 4" tall grow along a horizontal rhizome. A terminal inflorescence is produced from a sheath at the tip of newly matured pseudobulbs. Ctt. Jewel Box averages 4.8 flowers per inflorescence and 9.2 cm (3.6 inches) natural spread. Flowers are slightly cupped, and vary from magenta to deep red, depending on growth conditions (light/temp) during bud development. LIGHT As with most cattleya hybrids you will need a lot of good su...

The Blc. White Diamond is one the nicest white mericlone cattleya hybrids available. Although it’s quite rare to find right now. This hybrid has bright, pristine white flowers with a great shape and it holds itself upright when in bloom.  The flowers inherited a beautiful waterfall lip leading to a nice golden centre.The flowers are pleasantly fragrant and last longer than most cattleyas. This orchid is a compact grower and a fragrant bloomer. It consistently blooms off on each new growth, flowers are at about 5 inches in diameter. LIGHT As with most cattleya hybrids you will need a lot of good sun exposure for them to grow well and flourish. A north exposure window that gets sunshine throughout the day will be best. However, ensure to give it diffused light during the hottest summer days as the foliage may get burned. Remember if the foliage gets a red tan, it means that your light is more than enough. TEMPERATURE Plants can tolerate a wide ran...

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. 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 noble orchid’ as the plant quickly became loved by rich and noble people. Many years ago, Fuukiran’s were covered by a gold or silver net in order to protect them and people had to cover their mouth with Kaishi (a thin paper usually used for calligraphy) in order not to breathe on the plants while they appreciated them. This, by the way, is the same way the Japanese appreciate a great sword. This was an important time for Fuukiran as they became established into the Japanese culture. Neofinetia falcate ‘Shutennou’ is one of the most sought after of all the Neofinetia varieties. A very...

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...