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!

I love cymbidiums, I truly do. The foliage is fantastic, reminding me of little palm trees – or not so little in some cases where the plant is the size of a small palm tree. The big fat vigorous bulbs and their power to grow fast and survive so many types of environments and lastly the flowers. Cymbidium flowers are among the most bellowed of all orchids to me and I never can get enough of them. But, there is a problem here. I am really bad at growing them. Actually absurdly bad. Actually probably as bad as with growing cattleyas. The common Chinese cymbidiums that are sold in our UK garden centers are unfortunately cold growing plants that require you to either have a greenhouse or a cold porch or keep them outside and then bring in. So I can’t really do that. In fact I can’t do that at all. I have a patio. If I leave orchids outside they will become the lair of slugs, spiders, ants, catepillars and anything that crawls outside. And that’s the big NOPE for me. In fact last...

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...