Really nice

Playing with my new camera! Only one new to bloom, but a few still going from last month.
I think this is Laelia Purpurata 'Bleeding Heart'


Leptotes Bicolor just starting to fade


Epi. ellipticum purple


Zygonisia cynosure 'Bluebird'


Not bad foe auto adjust setting.

They are lovely! My Leptotes bicolor is now fading quickly. Yours still puts on a nice show! Pretty Cynosure!

Weather has been very cool here so blooms are slower to open and slower to fade.

My alba Schom superbiens - and the sun was out!

Nice CArol. Gosh I like that Bluebird

Orchids and Gardens...out of Fresno. She always has nice plants at a reasonable price at our local shows.

Carol ,your new camera does a fine job! Don't you love it when your flowers last and last?

These two just opened this week-
the diminutive C. luteola

and Cattleya Janice Evans 'Sweet Sixteen'

Love the C. luteola !

Luteola looks like it is made of fine porcelain. Both are just beautiful.

They're boths just lovely, Ursula. I finally have a new bloomer open today - the usual suspect "maybe Yellow Bird" on the big cork raft.

Elaine, et al, when you use cork as a "raft", do you put a large wad of long-fibered sphagnum on it before mounting the orchid(s)?

Thanks!
Elaine, that is always a good bloomer for you!

I put a thin layer of sphagnum under the plant, Ken. Large wads are just asking for trouble, I think. All my mounted orchids are in the nearest end of the cage where the misters water them every day, though. So they get wetted nicely, every morning and dry out nicely too.

Yes, the Yellow Birds and other Brassavola types are some of my best bloomers. They're also fairly susceptible to fungal diseases, but I am now trying a fungicide preventative program that I sure hope holds down the black rot and leaf spotting fungi better this summer. I sprayed with a new product, Actinovate, on Monday so we'll see how things go. Time and wet weather will tell the tale.

All my plants are grown far drier than yours then. I certainly don't water every day, not even the mounted orchids. I probably average watering every 2-5 days in the spring and summer, depending on what the ambient temperatures are. Of course, growing under trees cools my plants some and raises the humidity.

Gorgeous Ursula!...they do look like porcelain...or glass.
Elaine, you have problems with your Brassavola and fungus ?.. I only have a few of them , but it seems ( on my bench anyway) that the larger leafed Catts. are the ones I have trouble with..both with black spot and the dreaded black rot.
Maybe I have better spacing and better breeze on the Brassavola bench...
Ken, that's amazing that you don't have to water your mounted plants every day...I don't think I could get away with that here at my house!

Just beautiful, Ursula. Lucky you.
Elaine, maybe Yellow Bird is out. Must be spring!!!

I sort of doubt that the millions of orchids that grow in the wild and on tree branches get watered 365 days a year. Orchids go through droughts as well as rainy seasons. That's just nature at work. I could be entirely wrong about this of course. I have been known to be off-base with my reasoning.

But our pampered babies grow much bigger and better than orchids in the wild, and all that pampering we give them is the reason. Orchids in the wild don't get fertilizer and fungicide and insecticide, either.