Nice manageable then! It sure is pretty!

That really is a wonderful mount you have B. nodosa on there, Jim. Has she grabbed onto it pretty well? Mine just about devoured the piece of cork she was fastened to, and now she has some coco fiber and a bigger piece of cork to work on. But in over a year the big Yellow Bird that I divided had not attached to the cork at all except for one root. Now that I have it laying on the cork horizontally (the cork is a 'raft' ) it's put roots down all over the place.

I love all the blooms you posted, especially Enc. ciliare, and Golden Tang is on my Wish List. Such elegantly shaped flowers.

Just wanted to add that I indulged myself in an order of 5 new 'chids from Carter and Holmes today including (finally ! ! ) a Neo/Vanda falcata. Noticed they have a nice heat tolerant new Lycaste on sale as a Web Special for $10 and somebody was interested in them a while back.

Here's the link. http://www.carterandholmes.com...

Yes Ursula, a little recirculating brook was part of my design too.

AUTOMATIC SHADE SYSTEM:

CTC Wadsworth Control System- Movable Shade 1 EA $6,474.00 $6,474.00

10% Shade in (2) 30' wide x 12' deep bays

50% Shade in (2) 30' wide x 12' deep bays

80% Shade in (2) 30' wide x 12' deep bays

PRICES DO NOT INCLUDE: MATERIAL $18,653.12

1 Architectual drawings or permits. TAX $1,119.19

2 Site work, excavation or grading. WELDING $50.90

3 Concrete or concrete labor. LABOR $8,250.00

4 Electrical, Gas or Irrigation. TOTAL $28,073.21

5 Heater.

6 Benches. PRICE PER SF $13.00
---

30 x 72 x 9 Grand Truss Bow Greenhouse

Double Poly Roof Inflated

Solid Corrugated Lexan Endwalls

Sidewalls to have Corrugated Lexan Kneewall

Manual Curtains over Shadecloth on Sidewalls

10-10-12 (2) Sliding Doors in Endwalls 10' x 9'

2160 SF

-


I figured that by the time I would b done with his it would have cost me around $50K. That's when I decided to sit on it a while and dig holes for plants.

I still want it though.

Fred

I think you can save the shade cloth if you white-wash the ceiling?
And I believe the 12 foot ceiling if I remember correctly, was the key to that lady's "greenhouse/natural planting" success.
Sounds like an interesting project.

Well, I have another bloomer! This might be the last one for a while; I've got some sheaths but they've been slow to develop. I need to fertilize more; I was in a good routine until this summer when it got so hot I just didn't want to go outside for any reason. I do have a Mtdm. (forget what all that stands for) that's got some buds developing but that's about it for now. In the meantime, I'm going to enjoy this Blc. Dennis Kone 'Lakeview'. It has a light smell, more musky than sweet. This is another one I got at Byrd's going out of business sale. Oh, and it's wet because everything is wet this morning. It must have poured last night.

I like Dennis Kone very much! Pretty flowers and blooms every Fall like clockwork, right? Nice one Melanie!

You say the sheaths are slow to develop. Perhaps they are simply timed to open later in Fall/Winter and some might be Spring bloomers? My Fire Dance 'Patricia' has lots of new growths and I see sheaths, but the plant won't bloom until late Winter, no matter how much fertilizer I might give it....Surely you treated them very well, or they wouldn't have new sheaths.

Mtdm = Miltonidium

Ursula, I had 9 ft walls in my design. The upward curve started from there. 30w x 72L roughly divided into three sections from 80% to 10% shade. The tropical rainforest stuff is quite happy in heavy shade while some orchids and palms like the sunlight. Once I get my outside finished (if that will ever happen) I'll revisit this thing.

Thanks Ursula! Dennis Kone has only been in my collection since this spring but I hope it's a regular bloomer, even if it is only once a year. If I got all my orchids to bloom once a year in a staggered pattern, I'd have flowers all the time! I have a cattleya (that is now split into four plants) that usually blooms in October but I have yet to see sheaths on them. I may have to get them down and inspect them and give them a good talking to! I call them the "Mailman" orchid because my Dad got them as a present from one of his mail route customers. They're pretty reliable bloomers but they may not be used to living in the shade house. It's always an experiment with these plants!

Fred, I don't think you will have to worry about a heater. If you close the greenhouse up tight in mid-afternoon, iit should stay well into the 50s at night..

Pretty Catt, Melanie.

Jim

And - I hate to sound like a broken record, but I know the 12 foot ceiling helped moving the hot air in Summer away from the "regular/normal" growth which happened at a much lower level in the lady's set up. I seemed to remember her mentioning that specifically. The ceiling may have been sloped down from that height, but I don't know that for sure. Anyway....

Melanie, so this is still a relatively new plant for you. Look forwards to nice clusters of these pretty blooms!

Melanie, you're so right about it being an ongoing experiment with these plants, especially growing outdoors like you and I do. I am constantly moving my orchids and adjusting the sun/shade they get as the sun moves.

i haven't fertilized nearly as much this summer as I usually do either, simply because I figured the heavy rain every darned afternoon was washing most of it away anyway. I only sprayed fert if there was a day that looked like it might not rain too much. My orchids put on a lot of great growth anyway, since it seems they liked all that extra moisture! I'm trying to make it up to them now with a clean cage, and some extra TLC.

Love the color on that nice Catt

Jim - I like that Luke Skywalker. Have a shoot starting. Believe it will be a spider type bloom. Have lost a few plants recently for no "good" reason". Nothing changed but suddenly they just yellowed.

I am much better with outdoor plants!!!!

I just posted "stuff other than Orchids moved inside " into the houseplant thread. The Living room windows downstairs are still empty, and so is the garage ( for more C&S) .... but I am right on target moving everything back inside as the night temperatures seem to be now again steady in the forties.
http://garden.org/thread/view_...
I didn't feel like starting a whole new thread to show some pictures from the rapidly filling greenhouse, so I am including them here. Phrags and Parvis, Cymbidiums and a few more cool growing odds and ends ( or those stubborn non-bloomers which need to get scared a bit to bloom. hopefully.....and yes, there is still room for them, shoe-horning comes to mind. I was going to leave the Schomburgkia superbiens a little longer outside, but there are such beautiful spikes on this plant, I moved it in this afternoon too. The alba form is staying outside until frost threatens.


Not everything is visible, but you surely get the idea?
Btw thanks to Dave one can now upload a bunch of pictures at a clip, I only had to line them up neatly in horizontal fashion.

WOW that is quite a collection!!!! And they all look so happy in their sunny winter home. When we lived up in MD I would turn the house into a jungle every Fall/Winter. Remember we would occassionally find frogs hoppping around inside!!!!!

Husband is always waiting for distant drum rolls in that jungle!

Frogs? That's funny! We just have tons of small crickets chirping upstairs right now. We make sure the bedroom door stays closed, we don't mind the racket around the plants, but not chirp-city while one is trying to sleep! The vacuum cleaner stays out for a while to inhale any cricket venturing away from leaves.

I had several tree frogs in my orchids that came in and needed caturing and a return to the wild, but this summer we had tons everywhere on the wet nights.

Talk about a wet night, we have had what amounts to a year's worth of rain for Ted since 10:00 this morning. The tree frogs are climbing ever higher.

Orchid club meeting tomorrow. I have 6 for the bloom table.

Jim

Are they walking in twos into the buildings already, Jim?

May you come home with 6 ribbons!

Same here, at least 2in. of rain already today, and still pouring out.

Just back from singing at the nursing home and it is still raining, albeit lightly. They're not walking in twos, they're swimming in twos.

Jim