My membership at Marie Selby Botanical Garden gives me a choice of two "free" plants as a member appreciation gift each year in November. This year they are offering four orchids. Two of them are Cattleyas - Atalanta 'Hawaii' and Summer Spot which I know I can grow, and are nice but sort of boring. The other two are Psychopsis Mendenhall 'Hildos' which has an orange/yellow flower , and Trigonidium egertonianum, a little one with odd-shaped flowers that I am intrigued with.

I know Jim has success with Psychopsis, but he has controlled conditions in his OC. My orchids are all growing outdoors here so I'm wondering if I would be able to give a Psychopsis the conditions it needs. I do protect everybody if the weather gets cold in winter, and most of the year the conditions are excellent for orchids - moderate humidity, moderate temps - but summer is a challenge to regulate water at times. I've had a couple of losses to black fungal disease this summer.

Please give me your opinions on whether to go for it with the Psychopsis and the Trigonidium, or play it safe and take the two Catts? To be honest, the plants they give away are extremely small, at least 2 or 3 years away from blooming, so I'll have years of work to grow them to blooming size no matter which ones I bring home.

Here are the two babies I got last year. Cattleya dowiana, and Cattlianthe Chocolate Drop 'Kodama' Those are 2in. pots and each has put on a couple of new leaves since last November . . .

Since you are living in zone 9b, why not go for the warm growing Trigonidium. I should say, that I don't know anything about this Orchid, but it looks intriguing.
http://www.orchidspecies.com/t...

and
http://www.rv-orchidworks.com/...
If the Psychopsis is really teensy/ not showing any spikes, I would skip it and take one of the Cattleyas,
How is that?

Great, sounds like a plan, Ursula. They do let us view the plants before we make our choice so I'll know if the Psychopsis are a worthwhile size or not.

Interesting that your first link above says it has a synonym "Maxillaria (something)" because I was thinking it reminds me a little of my Max. tenuifolia which is a great bloomer and very easy care.

The C. Atalanta 'Hawaii' is really gorgeous in the picture they sent us, too. Wouldn't mind having it if I must raise another Catt from babyhood.

If I remember correctly, the Psychopsis Mendenhall is the one with spotted leaves, making it an attractive plant even when not in bloom. On the negative side, Psychopsis orchids can be painfully slow to put out new pbs. I grew Psychopsis orchids in the pool cage long before the OC so I think they would do fine for you. However, I agree with Ursula in that I would try the Trigonidium. You don't find them everyday, the flower is unique and Maxs are fairly easy to grow.

As for me, Bulb. fascinator opened today and I see a couple more buds as well.

Jim

Cute doodaflatchies!

Ok, I'll bite, what's a doodaflatchie?

I googled it and only came up with sites describing orchids - must be a technical orchid term, right?

Some posters use this fun term to describe those cute dangling appendages as such! I doubt that this is an official technical term.

Sounds like another floofy type word. Gotta love it.

Jim

Yes, floofy is yet another very technical orchid term . . .

Now I have to brush up on my French, learn Italian and Spanish and Orchidese. C'est la vie.