Orchid bloom in the winter

This day has finally arrived after a long time in waiting! After almost 3 years of fussing over this store-bought Phalaenopsis orchid plant, it finally set off its first bloom this winter! There are at least 7 buds on one stalk and another 6 on a second stalk so it looks pretty healthy, I think. My previous acquisitions of orchids have failed to reflower even after many months of attention and I've started to believe in other friends who also had no success that it is futile to bother. "Just get new ones once they fade" was the usual advice.

I'm not sure what exactly made the difference but I left this plant in the yard in light shade from late spring through the fall and it just received rainwater and occasionally drenching on the hose. When the weather got cooler, I brought it indoors next to a south-facing window where it gets 1-2 hours of direct sunlight each day. As the air in the apartment is very dry, the orchid gets a drenching soak every 3-4 days with rainwater that I collected or just regular tap water. I've only fed it with one watering with orchid fertilizer since and it seem to be doing well.

Longwood Gardens Orchid Extravaganza

Another splendid estate of the du Ponts dotting the Brandywine Valley landscape that no garden-lover should miss is the ever-beautiful Longwood Gardens, the former country home of Pierre S. du Pont. This past weekend, I visited the Longwood Gardens during the Orchid Extravanganza, housed within the vast 4.5-acre conservatory that never seems to lack color, fragrance, and exciting arrays of blooms.

This time however, the highlight of the conservatory was the incredible display of beautiful specimens of Cattleya, Dendrobium, Phalaenopsis, Paphiopedilum, and Oncidium within the warm and cavernous interior. Even though the winds were howling at up to 50 mph outdoors, the conservatory felt more like a tropical rainforest - humid and balmy at around the 70s.

What an extravaganza indeed! Huge orchid arrangements in the form of trees, cascades of orchids next to small water features, and dozens of exotic orchid specimens in full bloom in the Orchid House. Entering one section of the conservatory to another, at every turn, were lush displays of orchids of all shapes, sizes, colors, and forms. My favorite has to be the lace-like petals of the Rhyncholaelia digbyana "Mrs Chase" hybrid (pictured below). And the title "extravaganza" also belies how it must have been an extravagant expense to groom these orchids and keep them warm and humidified during the all those snowstorms and whatnot over the winter.

Rhyncholaelia digbyana "Mrs Chase"

I've seen many hybrids of orchids before in tropical gardens (notably Singapore's unmatched National Orchid Garden), but here at Longwood, the display is evidence yet of the tremendous diversity of the Orchidacaea family. If the tulip mania was emblematic of civilization's craze for beauty in the 17th-century, the crown must now belong to orchids in the 21st-century for capturing our loving attention and our tireless willingness to cater to their every need!

Visit to the San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers

What a wonderful afternoon out at the SF Conservatory of Flowers in the Golden Gate Park. Having weathered damages from multiple storms and natural disasters in the quake-prone city, the Victorian-styled conservatory (also affectionately known as COF) is now nestled within the greenery of the park, sheltering beautiful specimens of exotic plants from the tropics across the world against the cool foggy Californian climate. 

With an impressive collection of unusual orchids from the Americas, Africa, and Madagascar, COF stands out from the other conservatories that I've come across so far. Especially amazing to see is the healthy looking stands of Darwin's orchid (Angraecum sesquipedale). Our guide tells a fascinating story of co-evolution between this orchid and the long-tongued hawk moth (Xanthopan morganii). Based on the shape and unusual length of the nectar spur on the orchid, Darwin (and also his contemporary Wallace) famously predicted that its pollinator would be a moth that has a proboscis that is exactly 10-1/2 to 11 inches in length. He never witnessed the discovery but eventually the moth with this specific structure was discovered and later filmed in the act of pollinating a specimen of this unusual orchid many decades later. Evolutionary theory is both explanatory and predictive!

Darwin's Orchid

                                               

Orchids in the Baltimore Conservatory

Some beautiful blooms at the Baltimore Rawlings Conservatory this weekend.