What’s blooming in January? My #gardenjournal

Thursday, 2nd of February 2023 [40]

Let me start with a bloom picture. One of very small amount of blooms, cause my orchids are playing games with me. This is from many years ago, when I first purchased this Cattleya in fact. Because at the moment she is still not blooming.

The model, again, is my mum 😁

Some #rootporn for starters too. Her roots are really happy and strong. Cattleyas usually have strong roots. They love attaching themselves to anything they can get hold off.

Here is the whole plant. A crazy one really. I have not found a successful way of controlling her, so I just let her do whatever she wants.

At the beginning of the month I was happy to see the second cane with a flower sheet.

Because the first spike looked suspicious to me. The window where she usually lives has no heating anywhere nearby and when the temperatures dropped significantly for couple of weeks, she probably got a bit too cold.

I moved her to a warmer room and this is what the flower spike looks like now. Doom and gloom in full flow. The point is though, to observe your plants on a regular basis and respond to what they’re telling you. You might get it right or wrong, it matters not. You’ll either win or you will learn. Once you learned enough times, you’ll start winning at some point. And that’s all there really is to the ‘green thumb’.

For my beauty, there is still hope! The second cane that had a closed flower sheet at the beginning of the month, broke through and is promising to maybe bloom for me 😉

That’s if I’m really nice to her, she said. So I gave her some water 💦 Less flowers, but at this point I'll take anything!

Now, let's look at my Twinkles. One of the annoying habits of these is how they sometimes grow the spikes in bwteen the leaves and cane, like a stupid person would. How does she think all those flowers will fit in there?

Oh yeah, 'she' doesn't think. She responds to the conditions she grows in and if they're any less than ideal, she'll grow various anomalies.

Possibly not humid enough, which makes sense, since the radiators are on a lot these days. A few yellowing leaves on the big one would suggest similar issue.

Some spikes look nice and happy, but this too can change within a few days, so to avoid the Cattleya situations, these too are changing their positions.

A few days after the move to aproximately 2 meters away from the window I noticed one dried up bud.

That's ok. One or two out of 100's I can live with. Looks like the tragedy was avoided just in time.

The remaining buds are growing happy and very fast now. White one is probably 2-3 weeks away from the red one in blooming time.

Red one opened her first flowers literally on the day I was flying to Poland.

I took a few very quick pictures just before leaving for the airport.

I mean... I'm not even surprised. Like I said at the beginning - they love playing games with me. Why not bloom and smell amazingly while I'm away for a week?

Here is another example of an orchid that loves to play games. It's a species phalaenopsis with a fancy cross name. I bought it in bloom in 2018 and that was the last time I saw it blooming. It insist on keeping my windowsill space, but never pays rent in the form of blooms.

Here, another anomaly hybrid Phal. I got it as a keiki from a friend, whose mother plant grew keiki's like crazy. Usually it can take a baby phal 3-5 years before it is able to bloom. This one grew a spike after a year, then promptly grew another keiki on that spike. So now I have 2 keiki's of the same plant, both growing another spike way beore they reach their maturity. Hybridisation can have various efects on plants.

I haven't shown you any Dens this time. I doubt there will be any flowers from them. They all decided to grow keiki's instead of flower spikes and I am in a mood with all of them. I moved them away from the windows and reduce watering, but for some it was too late. Some are still alive, I promise ;) Those here will go to my compost bin in spring.

And last, but not least, my oldest orchid is on another blooming spree. This champion with masses of dangling roots is always in a mood for blooming. The flowers don't let me wait very long for them.

One day they're popping open and by the following morning they're happily observing my neighbourhood through the 1st floor window.

It's one of my travelling orchids, that lived on many different windowsills in a couple different countries. Happy everywhere, as long as it's by my side ;)

And why would it stop at just one spike, when it's possible to branch out? It's literally the only orchid (apart for the jungle one) that does this in my house and it has been doing it since 2016. You can check out her crazy roots and branching habit here,

That's all for January update. Or maybe just one more, my gorgeous yellow Cattleya - the star of December blooming update.
When I came back home from my holiday, on the last day on January, I heard her say 'I'm done now, mum. I'm out of juice' and I agreed with her. She blessed me with many happy blooms throughout the darkest months of winter. She paid her rent with premium this year :)

This is my contribution to #gardenjournal challenge, organised monthly by @riverflows in Hive Garden community. Head over to this post to find out more about this fun challenge.

Until next time 💙