Beachmont Garden

Beachmont Garden, a set on Flickr.

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

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