Sharry Baby "sweet fragrance" spiking
 

It's been about two weeks that I spotted the spike, but it was so deep down between a leaf and the pb, so I couldn't really take any pictures of it.
The spike is finally poking above the leaf so I'm posting a picture of it.

I'm very curious to see how tall the spike will grow this time. Last spike grew taller than 5 ft!!!

and of course, can't wait to smell the wonderful fragrance again! :)

Nice! :wtg:

I am so excited!!!

Woo! Well done!!! I got mine last year and it's growing like mad so I hope to following your footsteps.

spike growing fast!
 

It's only been about five days since my last post and the spike is much longer now.

One step closer to the day I smell the wondeful fragrance! :D

I love plants that grow fast and Sharry Baby definitely is the one! :)
So far, it is the fastest growing oncidium type along with my yellow dancing lady which is in bloom again now. The both bloomed in Nov/Dec last year.
Sharry Baby is much larger plant, so I guess technically SB grows faster.

Doncha just love the anticipation? I always do. Mentally measuring it's growth. Waiting for the first blooms to open. Yeeehawww.

five days past and the spike has doubled in its length! :) I love to see it grow so fast.

How's she doing?

The spike is over two feet in length now. :)
How's yours doing?

I got mine in spike over the winter but it was a relative baby, no pun intended. But it's newest bulb is quite large and the leaves much longer. It looks pretty good actually. However, I went and bought another...this time an awarded variety of the same plant. I also bought a similar Onc that has similar genes but it grow compact and is heat tolerant as well as cold tolerant...and supposedly it doesn't get those spots you don't like either... I can't remember the name though. I love scented orchids, though!

Mine is gigantic plant. The leaves are more than 2 feet in length and the last flower spike was longer than 5 feet. Individual flower size is quite large for type as well.

The new pb that's growing the spike at the moment has leaves that are about the same size as the previous ones while the pb itself is smaller. hmmmm...now makes me wonder what went wrong...

I saw yellow panda and red velvet varieties last week at a local store. They are both much smaller plants and the red varieties usually send up double spikes, which is a huge plus. As much as I wanted to get them both, they had some 'suspicious' spots all over, so I didn't.

My gigantic one is spot free, which I like very much!

growing spike
 

longer and longer day by day!

I just got mine in the mail the other day. It's got loads of new bulbs...hoping for an awesome showing! It had very very few good roots though, none out of the new bulbs. So I'm hoping now that it's in sh and being coaxed with some rooting hormones it'll take off.

Congrats! What variety did you get???
I think mine grew roots out of the new pb quite late. How big are the new pbs on yours?

I am thinking of getting a smaller variety. As much as I like what I have, it is just too big, and it only has four pbs.

The spike has been growing and growing for almost two months. It still is but it is also beginning to branch. Yay!

pictures will follow soon. I don't think mine is sweet fragrance. This is just too big! it's reaching 5 feet just like it was last year.

Sharry Monster! :)

Sharry Monster spike begins to branch
 

from the bottom up.

The spike is now about 5 feet tall but the tip just keeps on elongating!

Woho! That spike is going great.

Mine have never got that long, must be a happy plant. Not sure mine will spike this time, it's been sulking all summer since I repotted it, this time last year it have a couple of spikes... but there is still time :)

Mine is not the same as the standard sharry baby. Whatever it is, it is much much bigger. the plant size is bigger and the spike is like 5-6 feet tall. the individual flower size is also larger than typical sweet fragrance.

I want to replace it with something smaller, but so far, I haven't been able to find spot free ones yet. Mine is big for me, but it is such a nice grower&bloomer and leaves are spot free, which I LOVE!
well, I guess I will just continue to dream about having a mansion one day and keep this plant. lol

I see the first bud forming on one of the branched spikes.

The spike is now reaching 5 feet. I staked it so it would stay up straight, but then the growing tip bent toward the window and finally touched the blind.
So I put an extra stake on top of the one already installed and bent the growing tip away from the window.

The first flower actually opened today.

Sharry baby is one of the few orchids that bloom to their potential under my care. It just grows and flowers so well on its own it seems.
Almost all other orchids decrease flower counts once they are moved here where the conditions are not so ideal.

Flowers are open now
 

They are simple, but still pretty. of coure, the scent is soooo good!

WOW! Looks wonderful!!!

Thanks, this is a giant plant with large flowers.

Lovely plant. Quite big too. It's fragrance reminds me of vanilla ice cream with chocolate chips.:lol:

Sharry Monster in full bloom.
The spike was getting too long and I just snipped off the last one foot or so.

It smells so good during the day, but sometimes even this sugar addict cannot stand it and have to go out. :D

Congrats. I've got one as well that has two spikes but buried between the leaf and the pseudobulb. On mine, the pseudobulb is not quite yet developed, so I guess the spikes will start to really set off when the pseudobulb is mature enough.

This particular plant began to grow its spike in mid July when the new pb was about half way mature. They grew together.
It took a little over two months for the spike to mature and flowers start to open.

Fabulous!

OMG!!! That's a lot if blooms!!!! WTG!

I bet they smell delicious.

They sure do! :)

in the day light! :)

mmmm~ delicious!!!

After almost having my eyes speared by SB flower spike, I decided to do something about it.
I already trimmed off the last one foot of the spike, but that's not enough.

Last night I thought I would just play around with the spike and bent it down making a circle.
I actually like it this way and thought "how come I never thought about this before?"
amazed by how flexible the spike was.

Next time it blooms, I think I will try the heart shape. :lol:

Nice looking plant! I've got one of these in spike now. Will the pseudobulbs re-bloom? Or is it only on new growth?

I would say all oncidium and its related intergeneric hybrids bloom once once per pb. They grow new pbs and new spikes will come out of them.

I agree that I think it's just on new growth. Mine always seems to be on growth from the year just gone.

Just now I'm doing the happy dance because I thought my Sharry Baby 'Sweet Fragrance" was not going to bloom this year after it sulked last year following repotting. However I spotted a spike yesterday. Just the one, but it's still a spike :cheer:

My Onc. Sharry Baby "sweet fragrance" bloomed this year on a pretty large spike; its flowers smelled pleasant, but not in any way chocolatey (or even vanilla-y), which was a bit disappointing :/

Oncidiums and their cousins all bloom once from each pbulb. If the pbulb is very healthy it will usually produce two spikes. And it will usually produce two new pbulbs. The main reason they won't bloom is when they get repotted at the wrong time. Oncids and their cousins don't like to have their roots disturbed. They will skip a year and sometimes two.

The not spiking from old bulbs is not actually always true. It surprised me as well! Yes it's true in the vast majority of cases, but not always.

I have a Colmanara Wildcat 'Botcat' which had two spikes from a bulb, then had several new growths eaten off (I think by a centipede). I was on the verge of throwing it out because I thought all the eyes would have gone when a new spike came up... from a 2 year old bulb which had already had two spikes! It came out from between two leaves closer to the bulb than the original two spikes.

I decided to keep it long enough to enjoy the flowers. When it was finishing blooming I noticed a new growth coming from eyes on one of the eaten off bits (and it was really only a couple of cm tall when eaten off so there was hardly anything for this new growth to grow out from. I still have it and it's just finished blooming again. But that's an aside... the point is that it DID bloom from an old growth, and really surprised me because it is accepted wisdom they don't do that. It's not done it again either :dunno: