I love the purity of the whites and they are my wife's favorites to water-color.

Sounds beautiful! Surely people here would love to see her paintings, right?

Well, since you asked, Ursula, here are a few that I had downloaded. She has lots. I through in a "Bird" and a 'Marblied Rainbow' for good measure.

WOW, I thought those were real orchids!!!!!! Amazing paintings.

Ken, thx for posting! I knew they would be a big hit!

Bert

For my wife, I thank you for the kind words. She will be delighted. Like my growing orchids, her painting/drawing is a labor of love. She often spends 6 hrs in her art studio and me in my GH's, two ships passing in the dark, so to speak.

Oh my! I am glad I asked!! They are lovely!

Nice paintings! People with artistic talent freak me out. I'm literally on the level of stick figures. I haven't improved since kindergarten. If we were pre-historic people, I would not be allowed to do cave paintings. I'm so blown away! Those are really good! But I guess we all have our gardening talents to fall back on. I know people who can't believe I manage to keep plants alive. So I guess we're all special in our own way.

It's good to be special. Like you, I can't draw a straight line and my wife would kill every plant she came in contact with. We seem to be a good combination (yin/yang) and will soon celebrate our 42 anniversary.

Count me among the impressed. That is just beautiful work.

Jim

Last but not least, I agree! Lovely paintings.

My wife's camera is not so "top-of-the-line", if you know what I mean. Her water colors and colored pencils are much nicer than what is seen. Thanks again for all the nice statements.

Update on the Yellow Birds, very slowly turning yellow, due to nice cool nights.



Little Lulu up in the tree is doing well, I figured the critters would eat the flowers by now! I finally set up the ladder so I could get closer, and will go back tonight to check for fragrance.

I went out to water the orchids even though I think it's supposed to rain tonight. You can't rely on rain this time of year, anyway.

I took another picture of Neostylis Lou Sneary 'Bluebird' because the flowers are starting to turn brown so I figured this might be a last look.



V. Kulwaldee Fragrance #22 put out another spike. At first, the flowers looked smaller but I think they opened up more because today they looked the same as the other spike. They weren't smelling, though. Still pretty.



I've got a lot of little wasp-things flying in the shade house. I don't see any nests and I don't think they're paper wasps because they look too small. They've been congregating on the buds of my vandas about to bloom. I try not to bother them and they don't bother me. But I felt better when I saw two green anoles defending the area. These are the good native lizards, not like the Cuban anoles. I never used to have them in my yard but then I instituted a Cuban Tree Frog eradication program. Killing invasive species in kind of a "thing" with me. So now I see green tree frogs and green anoles. Hooray for good native creatures. Isn't he cool? He can make the shade house his permanent home, as far as I'm concerned.

Little Lulu is a cutie, Elaine!

Nice bug control, Melanie! I would welcome one of those cute little Anoles too! Did I mention I love this Vanda?

The snow is now coming down pretty hard around here. It was a good day to wash out trays in the greenhouse, clean the fish tanks! Indoor time well spent!
I suppose we are shoveling out tomorrow. It does look very pretty outside right now, while one is cozy inside sipping hot tea and eating Christmas cookies.

Lovely vandas, Melanie and I also love your green anole. Haven't seen one of those around here recently.

Glad to hear I'm not the only one getting rid of Cuban Tree frogs! My pond used to be infested with them but I've captured dozens of them. Now I get Leopard frogs, and Southern Toads amongst other nice natives. The tree frogs are singing out there even now.

Looks like our N. Florida friends are enjoying all the rain tonight. I sure hope a little bit of it makes it down here!

I did a nursery tour looking for gifts for some of my gardening friends, and got some fabulous shots of orchids at a local nursery. Most of them had no name tags, but all had price tags and boy! were they expensive! So I satisfied myself with taking a few pictures.

I have two just like this little Ascda, but I paid $5 each for them in Apopka. They were priced at $50!


Magnificent Miltassias, again 'way out of my price range. Only the last one had a tag, too. Its name was 'Lunatic Fringe' - I just love those names!


Last one was this lovely humungous Paph. It was so big I put my paw in the picture for scale. The flower was nearly 5in tall! You can see the price tag, very tall also.

Elaine, it sounds like you are up for another trip to Apopka! Little Lulu is looking good.

I agree with Ursula, I love your Vanda, Melanie.

I am getting a new computer for Christmas so my old one is now in the shop for data transfer purposes. It will be a couple of days before I can post pics. I will also have to learn Windows 8.

Always up for an Apopka trip, Jim. But it will have to be later in January as I am gearing up for 'serial kid visits'. Daughter and SiL are arriving the 22nd for a week, then son and DiL plus baby arrive for 10 days. I'm gonna need a break!

I was up at Tropiflora today as well, and there was no signs of life in the Plantio greenhouses, other than lots of plants of course. Tropiflora had a selection of fabulous catts in their showroom, and it smelled like a candy store in there. However I was 'on a mission' to buy gifts and resisted even the lovely B. Little Stars they had in spike. There was also a nice Chia Lin in full bloom, $35

Elaine, interesting nursery stuff! I like them except for the Paph, that one has horrible form, I think?

Congrats on getting a new computer, Jim!