North Moreton Qld Orchid Council Inc Show

Mormolyca hedwigiae

Hey Everyone,
Boy have I been busy, here was me thinking that the holidays would be the perfect time to catch up on blog posts.... nup, when I wasn't gardening, or driving around adventuring in my car, then I was working to earn money to buy more plants or pay for fuel to do more driving around in my car :) hehehe.



Well, as some of you may remember, I mentioned here, and here, I visited the North Moreton Qld Orchid Council Inc Show and the Brisbane Botanic Gardens, and boy was it AMAZING!  I took heaps of photos too, so without further ado, here are some of the lovelies that I saw.....

Pterostylis tenuicauda

Oncidium Twinkle 'Fragrance Fantasy'

Spathoglottis Premier x bulbosa

Mediocalcar decoratum

Tolumnia Capalaba Sun

Dendrobium archipelagense

Pleurothallis matudana

Dendrobium Alick Dockrill

Dendrobium spectabile

Camaridium cucullatum

Camaridium cucullatum

Dendrochilum luzonense

Dendrobium affine

Coelogyne rumphii

Bulbophyllum Herlyn's Delight

Well, I guess it's time for me to say "Happy Gardening", and I'm off to bed,
Michael

p.s. More photos from the show and gardens still to come

Really Cool Plant: Ruscus hypoglossum

Hey Everyone,
Yeah, yeah, I know, I promised Botanic Garden photos, and they still aren't coming... hopefully tomorrow night I'll sit and write something :), but for now... my cool plant...

I was given this plant last year by one of my friends in my orchid society, and she told me that she'd gotten it, named as "Dinosaur Plant" from a friend of her's way back when, and she's had it ever since.  Well, after a bit of searching, and the wonderful help of a dear friend of mine, I got it identified as Ruscus hypoglossum.  I've been doing a bit of research on it (yeah, I know, big surprise on that fact) and I've learnt a heap of stuff.

The plant was absolutely covered in flowers

What I thought were it's leaves are in fact Phylloclades, which are pretty much flattened stems that look, and act like leaves, and that the weird "trapdoor-thingies" as I've been so scholarly calling them, are in fact it's true leaves.

The only thing this beauty has in common with my beloved orchids is that they are both classified, way back there, as being Asparagales, but that's about their closest commonality.

Now, this lovely plant here, is apparently native to Western Europe all the way through to Iran.  It's common name is Butchers Broom because apparently the butchers used to use the bunches of these to scrub their benches and floors.  And according to Cambridge, Caesar's Laurel Crown was made of this same species.

Some places say is flowers in spring, some say in summer, some say autumn, but in my shade house, I've seen if flower all year round, and sequentially blooms on the same flower spikes, so don't remove them.
Well, I'm off to bed,
Happy Gardening,
Michael

Sleepy Sunday

The Tropical Dome at the Brisbane Botanic Gardens

Dendrochilum luzonense

Hey Everyone,
Just a quick post today.
Today has been one of those blissful rainy days when you get to rug up warm, and do something relaxing... Or at least it usually is.  I dug out part of the chook's pen today to try get rid of the mud, and I'll finish doing it when the weather permits, then I'll replace it with a nice deep layer of bark chip, which should take ages to break down, and stop the place turning to a slipper, poop filled quagmire, which would be lovely!  While I was doing that the rain picked up so I tidied up and took refuge in the shade house, and did a bit of pottering, and a bit more re-arranging, I'm trying to get everything looking nice and organised... I might achieve that one day... maybe.  Then this afternoon when I'd gotten so cold I couldn't feel any of my appendages I came inside and did one of the weirdest things... I acted my age and...*Queue dramatic music*... played a video game!  It was so odd, but I nice change, but I couldn't have been able to sit still long enough if it hadn't been raining, so I enjoyed it :D

Well, that's about all to report on, so I'll share some photos from yesterday, and toddle off to bed, I'm working tomorrow, so I should hopefully earn some money to buy fuel to go on more adventures, or to feed my many botanical addictions :)

Happy Gardening,
Michael

I thought this was very cool, smelt delicious (inside the pot was a twig)

Arid Area of the Bromeliad and Cactus House

Dendrobium spectabile, one of my favourite species

Pterostylis tenuicauda

Dinema polybulboa

Autumnal Joy

Hey Everyone,
As I mentioned yesterday, I'd be posting some posts that I wrote a while ago, and I've had a hectic day today, so I figured it would be the perfect time to post one such post.  I went off to the Brisbane Botanic Gardens today for the North Moreton Qld Orchid Council Inc. Show, and also to have a look around the gardens.... when will I learn that I never have enough space on the camera to take all the photos I want... oh well, more about that tomorrow :) on with the old post.

Courtesy of Ex-T.C. Oswald

HELLOOOOOO EVERYYYBODY!
How are you today? If you're in the Northern Hemisphere then I hope that your spring has sprung, if not, then continue to enjoy the cool, and if you're in the Southern Hemisphere with me, then I hope you're enjoying Autumn as much as I am.

Well, after a bit of confusion on behalf of the weather recently I hope it has finally made up it's mind to become Autumn.

This year we've had odd weather, with only 2 big storms throughout the whole of summer, where it was normally to get upwards of that weekly.  We did get rain, and quite a bit of it during summer, but that's the thing, it was just rain.  No WIZZ, BANG, CRASH, BOOM! Just the gentle pitter patter of rain... FOR DAYYYYYS on end.... well, we did get a few nice big wizz bang crashes, but only very few.  I'll admit, I do love a good bit of rain, but it was starting to get pretty tedious.  Well, onto our Autumnal weather.  Down here in Oz our Autumn started on the 1st of March, but it's only been in the past week or two that it's starting to make itself felt.  Last week we had two or three (I think) MASSIVE storms roll in.  Oh it was glorious.  See, when we have storms here in Brissie, it's normally very predictable, all day with not a cloud in the sky, then come roughly 3pm, and yee big beasty looms out of no-where.  And that was the case last week.  In Geography in the morning I'd watch 3-4 nice, big fluffy clouds forming near the city, however they weren't your typical clouds, these things were so tall, which to me indicated the pottential for a storm, and in Math in 6th Period I was not dissapointed.  Around 2 in the afternoon yee beasty reared it's head.  A massive front had formed and came rolling in off the ocean, and boy of boy did it make it's presence felt.  The ambient temp dropped by about 10 degrees, and then the light show began.  There was so much thunder and lightning it was as if it was making up for the lack of throughout summer.  Then, after about 10 minutes of it going over us and plunging the whole area into a deep darkness the heavens opened.  At first it was just a couple of drops of freezing water... but then they became solid and within no time the school looked as if it has been coated with a light dusting of snow.  But boy of boy, if we thought the thunder was bad, the hail on all of the roofs was simply deafening.  And just as the storm reached it's peak, with perfect timing, the bell rang, and it was time to go home.  I've never seen the school so reluctant to leave the safety of it's classrooms.

"Yee big beasty"

Well, since that storm the temperature has become decisively Autumnal.  The sun is rising later in the morning, so that I'm awaking to a bright, sparkly, dew soaked world that is glistening with morns first light, with crisp temperatures that make you breathe smoke, and in the afternoons I've started to wear long pants as I've been doing my daily gardening.  The sun is setting earlier, and the bird song recently has been simply to die for.  My darling Willy-Wagtails are back and keeping me company once more while I'm out gardening, I guess it's my version of the Robin, with their glorious raspy-chuff like noises, and their constant dancing it is a true pleasure to have them back.  I've let the back paddock go wild with grasses over the summer, and they're all now going to seed and if you look at just the right time, when the sun is setting through the trees all of the seed heads light up in such a magical way it is just breathtaking.  Of course the abundant bounty of seed and leaves have brought in the finches, and other little seed eating birds who're feeding on the seed heads causing them to sway in the last rays of light.  And all of the insectivores have come in too, to prey on all of the delicious bugs and grubs that have made the paddock their home.  I think that's why the Wagtails are back, and for that I'm glad.

I haven't been around much on the blog lately because school has been so busy, and when not trying to stop myself from losing my head I've been out in the garden trying to keep on top of things.  And boy have I been busy.  I've completely revanmped my Bromeliad Garden, added an "extension" of sorts to one of the shade houses, with more planned, whilst also pulling out phenomenal ammounts of Potato Vine, and I've been trying to redo a small secluded area of the garden that has been neglected for the past few years.  I'm going to redo it in such a way that it'll be a nice place to split the wood for the fire, and somewhere that I can dissapear to, to do a spot of pottering :D.  I'm going to do a winding path surrounded by a cottage-garden-esk beds, with a windy little path through some little sapplings that we have nearby and hopefully I'll be able to make it reminiscent to a forest.

Well, I hope you enjoyed my ramblings from a few months back, and hopefully I can yabber on at you again tomorrow, but for now

Happy Gardening,
Michael

The storm coming over school, it was way darker than it appears

*Insert Whizz-Bang-Snappy Title* (I promise this might be interesting ☺... I hope)

Oncidium Twinkle A photo from last years show, that I'm going to tomorrow

Hey Everyone,
Yeah, same old story, haven't been around for ages.... miss blogging so much... all schools fault for giving us assessment, and no doubt I should promise to blog more often..... buuuuut, we all know how truthful that's been in the past.... and a bit more yadee yadee yuduh....

Well, anyways, I'm finally on holidays again, I acctually have been for the past week, but I've been flat out with getting the garden back under control, and attempting to get my social life back in tact... or at least I think that's what I'm meant to be doing ☺.  During the days I've been pulling weeds, I built a shade house specially for my carnivores, particularly my Nepenthes, and Drosera, and I did that on the afternoon after my last exam, since then I decided to go the whole hog, and I've connected up all of my shadehouses into a nice big area that I can fill with shade loving plants ☺..... I mainly did it because my Dendrobium speciosum are coming into flower, and where I had put them for the summer was WAY too tiny for them to flower in (they have 1.5 metre long flower spikes, which adds a 3m spread to their already existing ginormous-ness).  Oh, and I finally tracked down some suitable sand so that I could repot my Drosera and Sarracenia, which is really cool.  I cleaned them up, repotted and even had a go at doing a bit of dividing... fingers crossed it works.

And of course I've become a father again... well, kinda.  We've had some chickens hatch again, and they are absolutely adorable!  I just love them.  I'm also baby sitting my neighbours pets this weekend... you know, the usual.... Fish, Mice, Chooks, Geese, Alpacas and a Bearded Dragon. I LOVE IT!  Also, here's a fun fact, geese bury their eggs... or at least these ones do, I went in to collect the eggs this morning and accidentally stood on a good egg that was buried in the straw, I was devastated, but I saw there was another one laid tonight, so I must remember not to stand on it.

I captured the rain on one of my Philodendrons in the brom garden this week, quite nice

Well, I'm sure I've done a lot more interesting things, but I can't think of them at the moment, or else I'll just save a blog post specially for them.

I had my orchid society meeting last night, which was brilliant as per usual, and then I'm off to a show at the botanic gardens, so there'll be photos from there as well.  I also wrote some posts a while back, so I'll publish them as well in the coming week.  But for now, I think I'd best wrap it up, show some photos, and toddle off to bed ☺

Happy Gardening,
Michael

Dogs bane, in School's Environmental Group's garden

Tolumnia Capalaba Sun (A friend of mine in my Orchid Society has thankfully registered this plant, and it's parents, because the tag used to be HUGE before he registered the names... I do love my friends)

GBBD - May 2013 - A Groaning Garden

Hey Everyone,
Long time no speak.  My school work, as predicted, has exploded out of all proportion, with several thousand long essays and assignments due left right and centre I've barely had any time for gardening, and It's absolutely killing me.  As winter is almost upon us the garden is slowing down, and just about to groan to a halt... good thing it is because otherwise it would be way out of hand by now with the lack of care it's getting.  The Phallies got moved into the house a month or so back to escape the cold, and the Masdies/Pleuros... or at least the ones that are left, got moved out into the shade house to appreciate the cold.  I'm now doing the task of moving things around, getting them into the right positions for winter, trying to give the cold ones the coldest spots possible, and trying to keep the warm growers as warm as possible.  And to top it off some have to stop getting watered, other have to start getting water, etc. etc. and that's just in the shade house, let alone in the rest of the garden.  I still have to whipper-snip around the fenceline of the paddock so that I can turn the electric fence back on, and bring my sister's horses down to get the grass in the paddock under control, I'm worried that the ticks and snakes are about to move back into the yard, and I'd like to tidy it up a bit so it can appreciate the last of the rain before the dry season comes on through again.  I've then got to finish tidying up behind the Garden Wall so that then I can get to wood pile area back in order and use again, but I have to figure out how to do so without disturbing the Bandicoot that lives back there too much.  I then have to move the wood from where it got dumped, over to the wood pile area, so then I can free up the garden it got dumped in so then I can plant the roses in there, and then there's the fifty million other jobs that I've got to do... oy vey, all this along with school work...  But at least the bulbs are starting to come above ground... oh god, that reminds me, I have about 30 bulbs to take out of the fridge and stick in the dirt, should I ever get a chance to do that...

Last night I finished my 6000+ word Study of Religions essay at 10:00pm and decided that screw it, I was going down to the shade house wether it killed me or not... just a word of warning, going down to a shade house, with lots of hanging pots right at head hight, and the floor strewn with all kinds of trip-able things is not a bright idea when you're using the light from your iPhone to see.... I nearly DIED! LOL.  I'd take a step forward and hit my head on a pot of Dendrobium chalmersii, took a step back and slipped on a heap of Lomandra longifolia seedlings that I got given, fell down, put my hand out to break my fall and squished an Echeveria aquarius, then stood back up again and hit my head on the Dendrobium chalmersii pot again... it pretty much just followed that kind of pattern while I was down there... hit this, react and hit something else, react bump something else, etc.  And just as I got everything moved out of the way, and made the shade house safe, I got bowled over by our Giant Schnauzer who was chasing a RAT! Now I know what ate my Dendrobium lichenastrum... >:(



Well, whilst not nearly being killed by my plants or the dog, I had some really nice surprises, my nose led me to my Angraecum eburneum that was has flowered for the first time since I got it 6 months ago.

After sniffing my way to the Angraecum, I then turned around and got hit in the head by the flowers of my Laelia anceps, that I had the pot sitting on a bucket on the floor... and yes, the spike his me directly in the face, it has a 5 FOOT LONG SPIKE!,... I have a feeling that I won't be taking that to the next EDOS meeting...

Well, here are the rest of the flowers that were on show last night:

Encyclia cochleata

One of my paph buds, I've never
seen this flower before

One of my Tolumnias is going to flower :D

Phragmipedium Calurum

Coelogyne trinervis

Mormolyca rigens

My itty bitty baby Haraella

Ascocenda miniatum

Zelonkoa onusta

Dendrobium Maui Rose

All those new growths are indicative of flowers to come :D

Dendrobium biggibum, the flowers are a bit worse for wear due to the bumps and bruises

My new Dendrobium tetragonum, I'm so excited about it.... please ignore the mess...

Nepenthes Gothica

And of course now is the time of year when Bulbophyllum longissimum, and of course so does Bulbo. rothschildianum, as well as Bulbo. Elizabeth Ann, a hybrid of the two

Well, I guess I'd best get back to studying... wish me luck that maybe in the not-so-distant future I may get the chance to garden once more...


Happy Growing,
Michael

p.s. I forgot to mention that I'm joining the wonderful Carol from May Dreams Garden for this wonderful Garden Bloggers Bloom Day :D