Dragon's Orchid Garden

Unseasonably cool weather has orchids popping in our back yard.  This cattleya hasn't had a bloom since we bought it at an orchid show 5 or 6 years ago.  What did we do right this year?  From orchids We're still learning.  Maybe it's the weather.  All of our orchids live outside.  We live in central Florida. It's a good place to grow orchids.  Lc. Evirett Dirkson is the name of this purple beauty and its scent is as beautiful as it's appearance.  We may have been a bit more steady with the fertilizer this year.  I try to remember the 'weakly/weekly' rule.  That means to dilute your orchid fertilizer by 1/4th and water once a week with it.  Orchids can be found on every continent on Earth with the exception of Antarctica.  There is at least one that will thrive where you live.  Contact a local nursery/florist and ask for native orchids.  You just have to try not to kill it :-)  Generally, no direct sunlight, a...

I am delighted by orchids.  The huge variety, somewhere around 25,000 species in 880 genera, means that one could collect and study them for a lifetime and never see all of them.  Eric Hansen wrote a riveting book, Orchid Fever: a horticultural tale of love, lust and lunacy , that describes the lengths to which people will go to find rare orchids.  I read this book before I had an interest in collecting orchids.  It is that good of a story.  I read it right after reading Susan Orlean's, The Orchid Thief , then seeing the movie.  Coincidentally, I was given my first orchid soon after reading these books.   While many orchid plants have large flowers... From orchids some of my favorites are the littlest ones.  Last year I posted a picture of our little cleisostoma chrochettii. From orchids It has such perfect tiny orchid form.  Also tiny is this ascocentrum miniatum.  It is blooming now.  I took this picture earlier this eveni...

With the return of warm weather, I am out taking pictures of flowers.  It is late afternoon and the sun is shining just so through the purple spotted phalaeonopsis, setting it aglow. From Sunlight through Orchids