Hello, everyone!
in March I got a mini Phalaenopsis Orchid as a birthday gift from my mother. After it was done blooming it seemed to have adopted very well to my room, it seemed to like the light and temperature here because it let out a set of 3 new leaves and a ton of new root growth. I did not know much about orchids back then (well actually I still don't but at least now I stated learning) so I just tried keeping it as comfortable as it could be here. In October I started reading on this flower and realized that I should have changed the pot that it came in. The pot wasn't too bad actually but I thought that it was getting too small for all of the new root growth. I decided to put it into a slightly bigger pot, trimmed the dead roots, changed the potting medium to bark/coconut husk mixture and then... the orchid stopped growing anything. The 3rd new little leaf just stopped at once what it was doing, there were no new roots and the medium just seem to dry out faster then the sphagnum moss that it was originally planted. After about a week of not seeing any visible movement I started to worry and mixed some moss into the medium and Voila! it became alive again. I could see the baby leaf getting bigger again! I was so happy, all my life I seemed to have had a killer thumb instead of a green thumb and now Alas!
"this plant likes me" I though to myself.. about a month after the media transition to my surprise I discovered a new flower spike!!!!! I couldn't describe my excitement even if I tried! An exotic plant that doesn't just like me- it is thriving and blooming in my care! Wow!
With my newly found Orchid confidence I decided to give it a try and get 2 other flowers.. I stumbled upon a poor little mini Phalaeopsis at Wegmans that (in the pictures it's the tiniest one with 4 white with purple dots flowers). And I also decided that I wanted to try my luck at growing a Paphiopedilum because I am just fascinated by it's beautiful lone-standing flowers. So I ordered Green Maudiae Paph. in spike from OrchidWeb about two weeks ago and it finally came in today with a little bit of a delay because of the freezing weather in MN. So now I am ready to post here and share that I cannot believe how precious this flower is, and the leaves alone are a joy to look at! I hope it likes the conditions here and thrives under my care
Praying for no bud blasting!!!
P.s. I am attaching a few pictures of everything described in this post. The phal. flower spike seems to have two little branches coming out of it, its so weird and exciting! It's original blooms were on two simple unbranched singular spikes.
Another Hello from NJ, where it's snowing AGAIN! =)
, beautiful blooms. The maudiae is not a phalaenopsis but a paphiopedilum.
.
Linear Mode
