BigBill said: Prabhi, do you mean Cattleya deckeri by any chance? Cattleya deckeri is a species Cattleya. It is now Guarianthae deckeri properly. It is closely related to Guar. skinneri and Guar. bowringiana.

Yes, I also have a C.deckeri from H & R Nursery
Prabhi

Sure is a pretty flower!!!

The orchid (hurricane version) shuffle is complete.
The living room, guest bath and office are completely full. Plus a decent amount in the garage and kitchen. This is part of my living room about 1/3 of the way done. Once the storm passes it will be a race to get the greenhouse built before the cold front gets here.

Great job, Lindsey. At least the plants will be out of your way when you're putting up your greenhouse setup. And it will be cooler by Friday.

We're expecting rain and wind, but not as much as you'll be getting, so I haven't done much schlepping yet. Will just bring in the blooming plants to enjoy through the storm tomorrow. The rest of my hanging menagerie will sit down on the patio, out of the wind, I think. Our back yard is so very protected, they should be fine.

The NOID Den is now on the kitchen counter, featured under the lights, and showing off it's stunning color. Punakea is just finishing it's first spike in the delicate "orchid pink" stage, and has one flower not quite open yet on the second. But 9 buds!



My extremely tall Den. Hilo Sparkle 'Exotic Orchids' has two fresh spikes just opening, too but it had to go into the shop for protection. It's just too tall and ungainly to get into the house now but would surely blow over. Sorry for the cluttered backdrop. Marsh has every inch of wall space taken up with tool boxes and the like. Oh, and there's a TV way up on the wall that I managed to get the flowers in front of. As usual they are messy and unco-operative at this stage, but in a week or two they'll be all nicely lined up like the Rockettes.

Great job everyone. I hope we won't get it too bad. I think I will loose my seedpods if the wind is very strong!

Be safe!Keeping fingers and toes crossed that Nicole fizzles out without causing damage!

They were showing some severe beach erosion, and breaching of sea walls on the East Coast even before it got dark today, and a video of at least one building falling into the water. The storm was still 100 miles away then, but of course the surf builds up ahead of the storm a lot when it moves slowly.

Luckily it moved out over the very warm Gulf Stream water after it got dark, so at least it doesn't also have the sun pumping energy into it. Hasn't strengthened as much as they had feared, but it did reach Cat. 1 hurricane status by 6pm today.

We are predicted to have gusty winds and some rain tomorrow, but farther north, Tampa and northwards they will be right in the path, and it will be sporty most of the day, I would think.

We've got a breezy , rainy day here. The winds are reasonable ..pretty steady at 35 and they are starting to clock around from the North to now the Northwest. I did take some pictures yesterday to share of things in bloom.
Before the storm..





Bc. Playa Chaou


Rlc. Yuko Ito 'Volcano Queen'

Beautiful blooms, Lindsey!!
I am always glad to see you Floridians being able to post after a Hurricane hit.

Glad to hear you're not getting power-washed this morning, Lindsey. According to my wind map, it's blowing about 50 offshore and north of you, but in all, it's been a fairly gentle storm as far as winds go. Even Ken, right in the middle of landfall last night, says it wasn't too bad there.

I'm putting my blooming orchids back outside to benefit from a nice rain shower now. My V. Lou Sneary 'Blue Bird' has two more good looking spikes about to open so I'm keeping an eye on the wind, just in case. Found a nice spike on one of my V. Josephine Van Brero X Dr. Anek about to pop, too. One bud got knocked off in it's trip to the bathroom, but it should open today as well.

C. loddegesii x Rlc Cynthia blooms again

and so does the Rlc Hawaiian Green Valley x digbyana

We got blasted! My neighbors enormous live oak had to be completely cut down today as it was blocking the road. It was magnificent to behold. I'm so sad to see it go. We have debris everywhere with branches stuck on palms, etc. Broken palms, plants have shredded leaves and defoliated, fences down, pergola with a missing roof, rainbarrels had to be hunted down, trash from somewhere all over, it's a mess. But, fortunately everyone is safe and we had no flooding. So, it's just a matter of plugging away to get everything looking good again.

Hurricane clean-up is miserable, Gheri. So sorry you're faced with all that. Good news is the weather will be cooler and breezy for at least a few days.

It helped me a month ago to concentrate on clearing and cleaning up the pathways first, so that then I could get to the rest of the mess, and get the wheelbarrow and trash cans around the yard without impediment. I have arthritis back problems so couldn't do a lot at once, but just working away a bit at a time got it done.

Now we have a little more mess, but nothing compared to post-Ian for us. Most of the tree damage and small leaves and branches were already down from that here. Getting out my leaf-blower tomorrow and just trying to make it look presentable, as we have company coming for the weekend.

Wow Gheri I'm so sorry! We have a mess too. Debris started hitting my roof between 3-4am and didn't stop until about 4pm. It's moved off from us now. A huge tree maybe more than one we aren't sure fell out on the main road close to our road and blocked it for over 7 hours. No traffic either way. My husband had to drive almost 20 miles out of the way to take a back way home from work. There were several areas without power here and one man got crushed by a big tree. My property is a mess but there's nothing I can do about it. I'm still in non-weight bearing mode until December 1. It'll just have to stay a mess

Wow Gheri, be careful with the clean up, so many accidents happen then. We are in Asheville where it has been raining and windy since yesterday afternoon. Worst of Nicole should hit here by mid morning. There have been lots of warnings about flash floods and mud slides in the mountains. We are staying put today. Not much news from home other than the texts from the electric company telling us our power is back on. LOL

Gina, be careful on your foot. I was able to drive for the first time the other day. Doc says I have to brake with my left foot and I found that awkward. He did not release me, says it is healing well blah blah, etc but I am still on limited use.

And we are looking at a very wet afternoon and evening/night, courtesy of Nicole's outer bands. Surely my fish will appreciate the water change.

When will I learn not to volunteer??
I volunteered to be Judging Chair at last years Michigan Orchid Society Show. Now fast forward to this year. I just volunteered to take on the job of Show Chairman!! What was I thinking??
Now I have to make sure we get vendors, keep the venue, keep up on exhibit spacing, participants, handle problems, make sure we have food for three days, feed the judges, run the judging!!! I must be crazy.

Oh wait, I just got invited to a show meeting, coffee and desserts served. Oh boy!!! And now a board appreciation dinner even though I have not done anything yet! All I need to do is show up hungry!! I think I can manage that! This may turn out all right!!!
Hungry is easy to do!

I can't think of anyone more qualified to organize the show… the benefits sound great!

If you build it, he will come!

With me it's, if you feed him, he will come!!

Bill you will do fine!