We came from here
The thread "Our Orchid Blooms in January 2022🍾" in Orchids forum

Starting the new month with my Rth Orange Nuggett 'Kadaoka' opening the first of two spikes this season


Den Roy Tokunaga is progressing nicely



Dialaelia Mizoguchi 'Princess Kiko' opens, while this Robin drinks some leftover water from the melted snow



and Epidendrum Saranac Lake starting a show with a dozen or so spikes in the works








and Paph spicerianum blooms some more


Please all join in and post away!

Wow, you have a nice show going Ursula. That Epi. is going to be a blockbuster! Keep us posted on it's progress.

I've been so busy, finishing the cleaning of the cage, and schlepping my orchids back outside for some life-giving sunlight again. It's done, but I am wiped out. I do have a new flower to show for my efforts today, the sweet little NOID Den I nicknamed "picotee" for the pretty white edges.

Sweet looking Den, Elaine!!

What a job!! Those forced clean-up jobs aren't part of the job description?? Your Orchids will thank you and so do we, enjoying your nice pics.

Looks great, Elaine! Cute Den. flowers.

Lots of genera going there, Ursula. As usual, very beautiful flowers.

Got to say Urusula, it doesn't look like it is winter in your area! Beautiful blooms.

Elaine I love dens and plan to take care of them better this year.

I do have a nice bloom on a Catt that is under rehab. It wasn't doing well with my friend so I had been taking care of it and has bloomed twice for me already.



And just a no ID rescue Phal.


I have a few rescue phals that have buds! So Yaaay, maybe I can post some orchid blooms, though not fancy looking.

Gigi, I that red Cattleya! Gorgeous! GigiCatt!!

Yes and smells really good!

Ursula, seeing a Robin in February always meant that Spring was almost here! But looking at the weather map, I'm guessing Spring won't be arriving THIS week.
Elaine , that annual maintenance is certainly no fun and doesn't get easier every year, but it is nice when you find a cute little surprise.
Great job on rehabbing that gorgeous Cattleya , Gigi...I would be tempted to say I killed it and hide it when my friend came over.
I've finally finished moving everything from the garage, kitchen and living room ...back to the bench, taking the time to look at each plant. After reading Sue Bottoms article in last month's AOS magazine about culling through your collection, I took about 16 unhappy plants to the trash can on the corner. One , a violacea (sp?) I'm taking to USF Botanical Garden to ask what I'm doing wrong with it.
I've a couple of new photos to share



Rth. Al Thanhauser 'The Best' X Rth. Choco Berry Fondue 'Red Spice' with a nice February appropriate color
and what started out with 2 spikes and 8 buds...all but one blasted on Myc. Cupid's Arrow

Gorgeous blooms as always Lindsay.

I would be tempted to keep the Cattleya but I have one similar that I divided into 3. I just discovered that my Cattleyas like the back porch where they get the direct morning sun, minus the direct hot sunlight.

Yes, Gigi, my Cattleya Alliance plants do quite well getting bright light and morning (before 11:00 AM) and/or late afternoon (after 4:00 PM) sun.

Very pretty, Lindsey!

I like the approach of tossing the total non-performers/decliners after some years of trying. I remember Andy Easton saying "Mulch it" if it wasn't up to snuff.

Yeah, I'm doing this more and more. I brought lots of older plants with me to Vero, varieties that I knew would be hard or impossible to replace. Many of them were already 10+ years in my possession, and many were divisions of already old plants. So they could easily be 20+ years old before the move to Vero Beach 4 yr. ago. Many of them simply have never done anything, little growth and no blooming in 4 years. I've begun to toss them, several each month.

Here is the thing - Around here Orchid shows are still cancelled along with Winter-Open Houses, which are still my favorite way of acquiring Orchids. Tossing the misfits seems to make room for Succulents in my case, which fill in that newly freed room. I really would like an Orchid show, it would be lovely if the Orchid Societies/Nurseries would be able to move them to the Summer months outside. Years ago we had plenty of those too in addition to the ones held inside during the Winter.

I am steeling myself to ditch a bunch of plants now that they're going back out to their homes in the cage. I do need to free up some room, the plants that are doing well are also getting big!

I can also re-claim a few slat baskets, and some pieces of cork from the derelicts, and let them bake in the sun to sterilize them. Cork is getting SO expensive now, and some of my cork mounts are beginning to get a bit soft and feeble. The little screw eyes that I put in the cork to hold the hangers are pulling out, and plants hanging askew. Lots of re-potting needed to carry everybody through the summer this year.

I truly can't bring myself to just compost the plants, though. I send them out into the jungle to fend for themselves - some get placed on branches of the oak tree, ya never know, one might re-hab itself and take off . . . I call it hospice care for orchids.

Elaine, years ago I switched to extra thick, extra dense cork. It was hand-picked for me and it all was sourced in Portugal. My cork slabs are 3-4" thick and you have to drill it to get a hole through it. This cork will last a lifetime, or 50 years, whichever comes first.

I never thought to simply put my under/non performing orchids on palms. I've got over 50 palms and 1000's of boots to put them on. That's a great idea, so I'll start doing that. Better than the trash can.

At Tropiflora, they've let me go through their bales of cork from Portugal, and pick out the thickest pieces I can find. That's lately, but at first when I was buying cork I didn't do that, and it's those thinner pieces that are breaking now and falling apart. They've lasted at least 5 years and more for some of them. That's pretty good value for an orchid mount. Now they sell it by the pound, so the last big hunk I brought home cost me well over $100. I still have some pieces of that so thankfully won't need to take out a mortgage to buy it again any time soon.

But of course when you mount orchids on cork, they need watering every day, so all that moisture, plus the rains and sun they get up there in the top of my cage have taken their toll on the thinner cork pieces.

I wonder how long it would take to grow myself a cork oak tree . . . ? They probably have to be decades old to grow nice, thick bark.

Decades old is correct, Elaine. The thick cork never breaks down, at least not in 20 yr. That's only the length of time that I began to use this extremely thick and dense stuff. I've always bought it by weight, generally 50 lb. at a time. Of course, this was all large slabs, not pieces. But if you've gotten 5 yr. out of the thin stuff, you did good.

Cattleya guttata X Cattleya bicolor blooming in Argentina

My old Bulldog - Paph/ Crown Jewel opens the first of two buds.



And Phrag Sorcerer's Fire keeps on going

How wonderful that someone named a bulldog Paph after Winston Churchill!

The Sorcerer's Fire is just a lovely, graceful flower with such nice colors and shadings, too.

@ceci Your Cattleya cross looks very happy and healthy. Must be winding down summer into fall down there now? We are maybe tasting a little bit of springtime weather here. But could get cold again before it's dependably warm, as well.