Have you ever???????

This is the little noid catt I have had for many years that has never bloomed until this week. It is mounted on a piece of driftwood and has, in the past, put out fat fleshy roots when I had it sitting on soil in a flower pot under a Japanese Maple. It rooted right into the potting mix, those roots dried up once I removed it from that spot. On its own it has few if any roots on the driftwood. You may remember a few weeks ago I had these huge bark beetles eating the driftwood. I did soak the plant overnight to force the beetles out. Maybe that caused this? Finally after all these years it blooms and what the ???? The flower is upside down and the petals are tightly curled backwards. There is another bud that should open in the next day or so.

Hilarious, Ursula! Not only do you have a beautiful orchid garden, but a zoo as well!

Congrats on the NoID bloom Alice! My, what a beautiful bloom it has.

Alice, interesting perspective on the second photo! Perhaps it now found its voice!!

Standing on its head. The petals are still tightly curled and it is still upside down today. What a weirdo.

Alice, Actually you are witnessing the flower right-side up ("non-resupination"). The developing flower buds in many varieties rotate 180 degrees known as "resupination" and are actually up-side down.

Resupinate or non-resupinate doesn't matter.
That blossom is upside down. I really wonder why the sepals and petals are so recurved?! I don't know if I have seen a worse case.
I can't tell from the images but is there a dorsal sepal?

About as weird as my consistent bloomer that blooms with her petals fused to the column, huh? This plant blooms twice a year, and has for the last 3-4 yr.

Let's hope the curled petals and other anomalies are just due to the plant having been under attack by the bark beetles. Stress does a lot of strange things to plants, for sure.

I'll bet next time it blooms, it will have a better flower. It's pretty, even in it's deformity.

I have made a practice of giving an orchid three blooming chances. The first time, if it is a bit of an ugly or mishapen flower, I let it go.
Perhaps the second time it looks a little better, I'll still hold on to it. BUT if on the third bloom that flower is ugly, I put it on the raffle table. After the flower fades of course. If somebody wins and takes it home, they will like it.
It blooms so I won't toss it in the garbage but maybe some one else will enjoy it.

I was ready to toss this one for its many years of not blooming when it sent up the buds. Yes, it does have a dorsal and it too is curled. No fragrance that I can detect. Curiouser and curiouser.

First time blooms are often goofy...some plants refuse to orient their flowers properly. Moving the plant once the buds have formed can confuse the situation as well. I once had a plant where the blooms opened perfectly and within hours all the blooms rotated 90 degrees. As Bill mentioned, once it did that 3 times it was re homed. It does have really pretty colors , Alice...and I hope the next bud is closer to normal.
Here's a few new photos this morning..
a newly acquired plant that spent 4 days in a box coming from a grower 60 miles away.


Blc. Talan Lambert
( tenebrosa x Goldenzelle)


The always festive Rth. Coral Gold 'Pacific Rainbow'



Blc. Jeremy Island Rainbow 'Carmela' X Pot. Hawaiian Thrill 'Paradise' with 2 gigantic floppy flowers



Blub. Lindsey Paris 'Bill's Gift' AM/AOS with flower #8 and 2 new spikes coming up!

Your Bulbo is really special, Lindsey! No complaints on the gorgeous Catts either, right?

Some stuff -
my Ludisia discolor is doing ok, and there is actually a spike.

Epidendrum Saranac Lake starts up, this one has a bunch of promising growths this year.



This Winter I see a few of my old Cattleyas looking a bit tired, only one bloom/spike, although I see several new growths. Here is one of them. Cattlianthe Best Friend 'Cleopatra'. More fertilizer during the indoor season?

Gee, that is a beautifully shaped flower!
The color is fantastic! I myself have never been a big believer in fertilizing every time I water. I guess I have been a supporter of once per month as being plenty. But I am a believer in changing fertilizers.
I think I have spoken about this before. I used to use those bigger name tags Ursula with those columns on the reverse. You know those with places to enter:
Month/Day/year that something flowered. Plus number of inflorescences and number of flowers. Well back in the early 90's, my orchids were flowering with a lot less flowers.
I had been using a particular fertilizer for years. The lady I worked for got her hands on 25 pound bags of Champion fertilizer. I tried it. I got more flowers on more inflorescences!! It went that way for like 5, maybe 6 years and the numbers according to the back of the tag started to drop off again. So I tried to repeat my success by trying another fertilizer. Now I am in the very late 90's. I think it was a Jack's product. Well son of a gun if my plants put out more flowers!!
And then came Florida and the Cattleyas toasted in all that heat but I went back and tried Orchids Plus fertilizer that I got in Home De-Pot. And again, flower numbers went up again! For example, a Dendrobium moschatum that bloomed with like 35 flowers on 6 inflorescences bloomed the next time with like 130 flowers on 18 inflorescences. Not only more flowers per but they were noticeably bigger.
I speculated as to why this happened. I just surmised that maybe it was a different blend of micro nutrients or something BUT THE TAG DIDNT LIE!! I got more flowers.
What's my point?? Do orchids get too used to a certain blend and when you change it they respond?!?!

Would it be worth your while to try??

I'm not nearly as scientific as you, Bill, but when I began to actively purchase large numbers of orchids some 10 yr. ago (by 2017, I was purchasing almost 1000 per year) I decided it should be best to use various fertilizers and bactericides, fungicides, insecticides, and miticides, rotating them. I was using 3-4 different orchid fertilizers and about the same number of "critter" formula. Though I now have far fewer orchids, I still do the same as far as fertilization and have actually increased the number of fungicides that I use. Florida is a beast when it comes to fungi. After a lapse of good blooming the first year of moving, my blooming has now gotten pretty good again. I can't say that it's because of my rotation of different fertilizers, but perhaps that has helped.

I too believe in alternating Fertilizers between "Organic" & "Chemical formulas".

For Years I only used Peter's aka Jack's 20-20-20. Have experimented with some odd organics like Bat Guano Tea, Fish Emulsion, Liquid Kelp etc figured my Orchids were getting tired of the same diet.

Can't say I've seen any difference, but... it couldn't hurt.

It was easy to fertilize often when I kept fish in the greenhouse, I just dumped the old aquarium water on my Orchids! That meant once a week some group got fertilized. Especially the small, mounted species and Phrags loved it!
Yes, I have been using the same stuff the last few years, Peter's/Jack! And this year I am trying Osmocote above some Orchids!
I will try a change from the Peter's stuff! I bought some liquid Orchid fertilizer the other day at Dearborn, by sheer coincidence! Let's see if that tickles their fancy!

Ursula said:It was easy to fertilize often when I kept fish in the greenhouse, I just dumped the old aquarium water on my Orchids!

Hey, now that's an idea! And a great one.

Johannian, I kept a couple of 40 gallon tanks underneath the Orchids, keeping mostly Gouramis, in particular Paradise Fish/Macropodus opercularis. They are a really pretty blue and red fish, easy to keep, and not that sensitive to lower temperatures, they could easily adjust to moving outside in the Spring. (Pond in backyard, where they spawned during the Summer and flooded me that year with ca 1000 babies.... true story! ) Nowadays I keep Goldfish in the pond, which stay outside over the Winter.