Does true blue orchid exist? My Coelogyne Intermediate orchid [1]

Sunday, 19th of February 2023 [48]

Hello Always a Flower community. I have recently discovered it, thanks to @wesphilbin 's reccomendation. I have plenty of flowers to share!

I’ve always dreamt of having a blue #orchid. Blue is my all-time favourite colour. Ever since I remember. Hence why you’ll almost always see 💙 at the end of my comments.

Does true blue orchid exist though? The simple answer is NO. Contrary to what you see on the picture above, there are no true blue orchids in nature. I wanted my blue orchid so much that I edited my white orchid for as long as it took to make it blue. In reality is as white as white goes. With a little yellow ;)

Botanists across the world do their best trying to hybridise various species of orchids to create that blue variety that I dream about, but in truth they still haven’t managed this. Only 10% of all flowers in the world are blue. Blue seems to be a rare pigment in nature in general.

Here another couple of my attempts at ‘creating’ blue orchid.

Even a pale blue would be a success! But so far, we only have #Vanda Coerulea, which some people call blue, but to my eyes it is still purple/lilac orchid, not really blue.

What about all those blue Phals we can sometimes find in supermarkets? Well, enjoy their ‘blueness’ while it lasts. The blue colour it has comes from a food dye and next time your orchid will bloom, it will be just plain white - the original base orchid sellers use for dye them blue.

Now that we have the question answered (sorry it’s a no), let’s have a look at my #CoelogyneIntermediate orchid.

I purchased it around 5 years ago at my local orchid society meeting. I was totally taken by its scent.

‘What scent? I can’t detect any!’ - I’d hear from other orchid lovers and people who visited my house while it was in bloom.

Well, that’s where my super sensitive sense of smell comes to play. The scent is so very delicate that I really need to stick my nose there to smell it, while most people sadly can’t smell anything.

Whether you can smell it or not, you must admit that the blooms are simply gorgeous! Fluffy white flowers with an intricate yellow lip. How I wish I had macro option in my phone to take even better capture of all the detail!

My orchid bloomed once of twice again and in the meantime it has been very busy growing pseudobulbs. So many of them that it climbed out of its pot and it lives half in the air these days.

The new p/bulbs are much smaller than the original ones though, which clearly shows my neglect in proper watering and feeding.

Despite being mistreated it grew 4 new p/bulbs last season and all 4 had a potential to bloom, as the flower spikes started to grow, but sadly they never developed fully last year. Around this time last year I completely lost the interest in life in general and my orchids and garden in general sure felt the same.

Upon last watering/feeding time, approximately 3 weeks ago, I finally removed all the remaining and dried up flower spikes.

Luckily for me, I also noticed the new potential flower spike! The usual spot for this orchid is in the corner of my windowsill and one year I almost missed the bloom, as it was hidden so well in the corner.

Man, I’m so grateful for the labels the orchid growers put inside the pots. Otherwise I’d have no chance of remembering some of the names of my orchids. Only thanks to watching 100’s of orchid videos on YouTube I am even able to pronounce some of those complicated names.

This spring I am planning to repot my #Coelogyne orchid, but the roots seem so happy in this semi-hydroponic setup and this pot in general. I’ll most likely will break a few in the process. I’m also pondering whether I should move it to a bigger pot or maybe divide in 2 and gift the other half to someone? Will see when time comes.

A few weeks ago, while watering my orchids, I decided to count how many out of 60-70 I once have are still alive. There are just over 40 of them.

Back in a day I wanted to have an orchid register. I even downloaded an app to keep track on them, but I lost interest at some point.

Now that I’m on Hive and I talk about my orchids a lot, I thought I’ll take some time to introduce each one of them to you as and when they bloom. They all have a story or two to tell 😉

So here is the start. No 1 - Coelogyne Intermediate [January 2019].

PS. Do you remember code blue from my Valentines article? In total 6 people responded with code blue in the comments. Sending the sbi units turned out to be a bit more challenging than expected, as the units didn’t seem to reflect in the wallet, so I’m sending one at the time and wait for the confirmation. So far I have sent it to @duvinca and @ewkaw and I have 4 more to send over the next week or two 💙

Until next time 💙