Brassia Datacosa "Coos Bay"

Hey Everyone,

I had the pleasure of getting away from my study and spending the night with some great friends this week at my Orchid Societies August meeting, and it was BRILLIANT!  I put in some plants into the monthly competition, and ended up getting a 3rd for my Pterostylis concinna, so I was pretty happy.
Each month I always take along everything I have in flower, but I never take them because I think I'll win; I take them because it adds to the show on the night, and maybe some day I may take along something that someone's never seen before, which is one of my favourite parts about the night.

My mum was surprised because on the night I took her along with me, and we went with 4 plants, and came home with 6 :).

Well, as you've probably guessed by now, one of the plants I got on the night was a Brassia Datacosa "Coos Bay" from one of my friends and I just LOVE it!  So I thought I'd share some information about it with you all :)

Brassia Datacosa is a Primary Hybrid between B. verrucosa and B. caudata and it seems to flower in late winter and early spring.  At the moment its a relatively large plant with 4 spikes on it, and I can't wait until it grows into an even bigger specimen with MILLIONS of spikes and flowers :).  I'll probably take a cutting or two this spring, so then I have some back-ups, and I might sell some too... I'm going to try and make the orchids into a self-sustaining hobby :).

I'll have this is my shade house next to my Oncidiums under 75% shade cloth, and I'll allow it to dry out in between watering.

Happy Growing,
Michael

A Fragrant First

Hey Everyone,

In Summer I decided that I'd give refrigerating some of my bulbs a bit of a whirl to see if it worked or not, and if I'd get some flowers that I hadn't gotten before... well, as you can see, I do believe it's worked.

Would you believe I've never smelt a hyacinth flower before?  Well, it's true... or at least it is to my recollection...  Anyways, aren't they cool(... get it, they were refrigerated... cool.... ? :-) )?

What I did with them was about March, I chucked all my bulbs into separate bags depending on the variety, lobbed them into the crisper in our fridge, and then prevented the family from putting any fruit or vegetable that may produce ethylene in that fridge (luckily we have 2 fridges, one in the kitched and the other in the bar, or I don't think this would have gone down all too successfully).  Well, the people said to only have them in there for 6 weeks or so.... except.... ummm.... yeah, I forgot about them... so they were in there for about 16 weeks, but they don't seem to have suffered any harm :-)



So far I've had my Daffodil Tete-a-tete flower, and now the hyacinths, and this other Daffodil that you can see in the photo... I forgot to memorise it's name so I'll have to go down tomorrow and take a peak :-)

Well, I'm off to bed...


Happy Gardening,
Michael

A Change of Plan

Sarracenia leucophylla

Hey Everyone,
That's it!  I give up!  I can't do it anymore! I forfeit!

Boy oh boy am I like a broken record... well, one that plays every couple of weeks, but the same thing over and over and over and over..... yeah, ok, so you get the picture?

I know, I keep saying every time, this time it's different, I'm going to post every day.... I promise I'll post more... I'm determined to post more... yadee yadee yada...  Well I give up.

As much as I LOOOOOVE my blog, and blogging, and plants, and everything that goes along with those things, sadly at the moment I've been too busy to post a "half decent" blog post... you know the kind, lots of words, long stories, plenty of photos... well, I sadly simply just can't manage it, so I think now I'll just have to settle with uploading some photos every now and then, and then putting in a story every once in a while if I can manage it... what do you think?  You see, if it wasn't for homework; study; assignments; school; lack of sleep; 5-acres and 4 shadehouses worth of gardening, I would probably have all the time in the world to write and post about plants.... but then again, if that were so, then I'd probably have nothing to write about.  LOL.

Nepenthes x hookeriana

Well, let's see.... what have I been up to.... lordy me, I'm having trouble remembering... probably an early onset of senility.... that's what you get for being a gardener, and a member of an orchid society when you're a teenage... I think it can be perfectly summed up in a skit that the comedian Hannah Gadsby did, to see it, click this youtube link... hahaha, LOL....

Well... hmmm.... (think boy, think!)... well, let's see then, last time I posted I'd been to the Botanic Gardens (oh how that was so lovely, I saw heaps of stuff that I never knew existed... the gardens are more impessive then I'd thought...), since then I've missed out on yet ANOTHER EDOS meeting (for which I'm devastated), oooh, oooh!  I have recently joined a forum called The Australian Carnivorous Plants Forum and it is absolutely AMAZING!  The people there are so nice and helpful, it's really cool, and I even got to meet one of them members recently when I responded to a post of his offering big bags of sphag moss for free because he was refurbishing his green house... anyways, I went around to his house and he was the nicest guy ever, showed me around, I feel like I talked his ears off, and then to top if off I got 2 MASSIVE garbage bin bags full of perfectly good Sphagnum Moss.... so what out plants, come spring, you're being repotted :D.

Nepenthes ventricosa x truncata

hmmm... what else....?

Ooooh, I've had a heap of bulbs flower (after I refridgerated them), my carnivores are coming out of dormancy, and some other stuff has flowered... but I guess I'd best save those short descriptions and photos for another time (hopefully REALLY SOON!!!!), but for now, enjoy the happy snaps, and as always

Happy Gardening,
Michael