Cymbidium Seedling Progress

Tomorrow is New Year's Eve and I'm looking at some nice buds plumping up but nothing's open yet. December has been mild and wet. We've had three very nice storms giving us almost 4 inches of rain total. The storms have kept us cloudy and much cooler with the low temperature one night dipping to 32 degrees, and most of the other nights touching the low 40's. This week's been much warmer and brighter with a slight offshore and fog tonight.

This spike has grown very little since the picture from 12/9 but the buds are filling out and growing......slowly. The nice bright days and mild nights are welcome.

Happy New Year to all!!

Surprise cymbidium spike

A surprise! A cymbidium spike opened in the growing range. I think it is a variety that usually blooms around Valentine's Day. Small flowers for a standard, short spike with 6 nicely shaped flowers. This plant had 3 spikes and the other 2 will be open this week. We are having a wonderful warm bright beautiful Santa Ana day (breezy but not windy).

The other flowers in the vase are red anthuriums, purple Beallaras and lavender Miltonidiums...our usual fall bloomers.

Cymbidium Seedling spike progress

It's been about 10 days since my last picture of this Cymbidium Red Beauty seedling's first spike and it has grown. The stem has elongated and the buds are spacing out with the bottom ones showing their individual placement as the tip continues to grow. This makes it easier to count the buds. There are 12 buds, very dark color. The suspense and excitement makes me want to hurry the bud and spike development along......BUT, overheating or overhandling can result in a broken spike or blasted buds.

I'll just be watching until they decide to open. We've had cool overcast and foggy days, then a few warm sunny days, with nights in the mid fifties. Last night the thermometer recorded a low below 50 degrees. The National Weather Service shows a front coming through today and a stronger colder one for next weekend (maybe some snow for the ski resorts). This will probably slow bud and spike development. The temptation to apply heat to speed things up is great.......But too much heat will make the buds turn yellow, shrivel and fall off (often called "bud blasting").

I picked the spike above to watch from a couple of tables of seedlings of the same cross because it looked like it would be the first to open. After taking this picture, I noticed another plant with an even taller spike and 15 buds. It is pictured below.

Blc. Oconee 'Mendenhall'

Blooming this week with beautiful large fragrant flowers. It has produced a lot of very nice hybrids for us in the past. Perhaps, it's time to try it again with some compact growing types. This is a picture taken today under quite overcast and gloomy conditions with natural light and the colors are a little washed out. We'll have an updated picture of the cymbidium (Red Beauty hybrid) spike later in the week....it's growing quite nicely and starting to space the buds out.

New cymbidium seedling spikes

It's Thanksgiving week and we've been watching these spikes on a new batch of Cym Red Beauty seedlings pushing up some very nice spikes (first time bloomers). I cannot pretend to be able to tell anything about the eventual flower size, shape, color (maybe dark?) but the spikes are strong and straight and bud counts okay.

We'll keep posting new photos as they develop. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!!

Thanksgiving Orchids

A nice selection of new seedlings for Thanksgiving always makes me thankful. The little green/white Brassavola hybrid down at the bottom with some promising buds above are waiting to open. They put on an impressive display for such compact plants in 4" pots. The orange/red seedling cattleya dominating the picture is a Blc. Waikiki Gold X Slc. George Hausermann hybrid.

We've gotten a little over an inch of rain since Tuesday midnight and the NWS advised of a "Tornado Warning" with an approaching cell with 100 mph winds spinning nicely and approaching San Diego. Wish we could just have the water without the spout component.


HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL!!

Euterpe edulis palms

Euterpe edulis is a very graceful and delicate solitary (single trunk) palm giving an airy lightness to the landscape. It has very distinctive "blue" seeds that will stain your hands when you pick them.

The United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Beltsville Area Germplasm Resources Information Network (GRIN) includes it in it's "human food" class. There are a couple of references to it as "cabbage palm".

It is native to South America (Brazil, Argentina and south) but grows well in Southern California (recommended low temperatures to 25 deg. F). Although it can tolerate full sun on the coast, partial shade is recommended inland and young plants should be protected from full sun in all locales.

Tropical and Subtropical plants for Southern California

The Queen's Flower tree, Lagerstroema speciosa, a fast growing, deciduous tree with beautiful lavender blooms is thriving and growing in the ground after one full year in coastal Southern California. Both in containers and in the ground, it lost it's leaves on schedule and put out gorgeous new foliage. The Queen's Flower trees are doing well even after the lows of the last winter (28 degrees ) .

Alpinias such as this Kimi Raspberry only survived in the greenhouse (minimum temperature 48 degrees). All the large plants outside in full sun and in the shade house (overhead protection but no heat) are dead.

However, the Indonesian Wax Gingers seem more cold hardy but still would not recommend overwintering in temperatures below 45 degrees.

Dwarf Yellow Poincianas are growing vigorously from seed but have yet to go through a "normal" winter here in coastal So. Cal.

Cymbidium season recap

It's a lazy hazy summer with new cymbidium growths making good progress. The last cymbidium season gave a moderate number of spikes but very clean, bright colors and good flower size overall. The rains in late winter and spring were really well spaced (every week to 10 days) and the cymbidiums loved all the good water.

We observed less than usual damage from slugs, snails, mites and other pests. A little physical damage from the moderate to heavy winds that came in with the rain storms. The petals and sepals showed a little bruising where they rubbed together.

The three or four day temperatures in May that touched 90 degrees did little to harm the blooms but the season ended earlier than last year.

Looking forward to the next season and trying to keep the plants in good shape and still conserve water.......no rain for us here on the coast......the inland folks got almost an inch in May from one random storm.....lucky for them.

A new cattleya hybrid blooming

The Okarchee hybrid shown at left is the first from this cross to have this deep raspberry fuchsia/purple color. Most of the others that bloomed last year were a much paler pink shade with medium colored lips. Nothing spectacular but pleasing. The spikes are nice and tall showing the cattleytonia parent's influence but the shape of the flowers and arrangement of the blooms on the spike look more like the Okarchee parent. Will have to get pictures of the parents to do a side by side comparison.

New Phalaenopsis hybrids

We're slowly starting to see some of our new phalaenopsis hybrids beginning to open their blooms. It seems like an interminable wait between spotting a new spike emerging until the first buds open. These are two siblings from a cross using a dark rose/red and a white with a red lip. Both seedlings have pretty good bud counts and branching spikes. The paler pink flower on the left shows slight feathering on the petals.

Boston Ferns, Basic Care

Boston ferns make an attractive decorative addition to any bright room or patio. In Southern California, they grow year round in our normal range of temperatures.....~ 50 to 85 degrees. The large ferns shown in the picture need a good regular watering to keep their roots uniformly moist to support the surface area of all those fronds. A drip system is ideal and utilized in the greenhouse to provide adequate nutrition and moisture. The automated system turns the water with fertilizer on once an hour from 6 am to noon every day during the warm months and every other day during winter/early spring. It is important to keep the fronds dry (No Misting). Our water will quickly turn the edges of the fern fronds brown.

When the ferns are ready to sell, they are gently removed from the hanger line and turned upside down, given a slight shake and all the fronds gathered upright, held in a bear hug and placed in a cone shaped paper sleeve. This protects the plant during transport and handling.

Since they havn't been watered for a day while sleeved, I recommend soaking the pot/roots in a bucket of water for about 10-15 minutes before unsleeving to rehydrate the plant. Gently take off the sleeve with the plant horizontal or upside down, then slowly turn over to hang or place in a plant stand. If you ever want to shake out any loose, broken fronds, shake gently upside down. Comb through the fronds on the underside with your fingers (best done outside), shake, then turn right side up carefully. Doing all this from the underside of the fern, keeps breakage to a minimum. Once the root ball has been rehydrated, use a water bottle (quart size with a sports top) filled with water to add water every day or two. Just crack the top open and invert into the center of the fern and let it drip in slowly.

If you forget to water the fern for a few days, it will look paler greenish grey and limp. Carefully gather up the fronds (dry fronds can break) and resoak the pot in a bucket of water again. The color will come back as the fern soaks up the water. A "dead" looking fern can usually be revived 3 or 4 times before it is truly dead.

There are many ways to keep a fern looking lush and green but the bucket soak and water bottle are an easy way to keep your fern happy.

Cymbidium Cut Flowers for Valentines 2008

This last week's beautiful warm summery weather has opened a nice assortment of cymbidium buds for Valentine's Day. We just finished cutting these sprays this morning. A week ago, 70% of these cymbidium sprays showed no sign of opening in time for Valentine's. What a difference a week of mid 70 and almost touching 80 degree days will do for the crop! Lots of pink seedlings and Cym. Via Mar Tranquilla 'Mt Cook'.

Very Chilly But Sunny and Bud Blasting

I've been watching a few benches full of spiked phalaenopsis and Cattleya plants when I noticed one of the most promising buds turned into a shriveled papery yellow ball. It just withered and hung there while it's adjacent buds kept on filling out, and opening. "Bud blasting" is a term used for aborted buds.

This is the time of the year it happens to our plants. The sun is swiftly traversing to the North, days getting longer and warmer. But that plant that was properly shaded in the winter got a straight shot of sunlight and heated to the point of "blasting". OR, it's really cold at dawn. Much colder than earlier in the winter and the heaters are working hard to keep everything at the designated temperature. Ethylene and other combustion gases can also make the buds "blast" prematurely. Some varieties of Phalaenopsis are more sensitive to ethylene damage, some plants could be more stressed, too wet, sitting in a puddle, or otherwise unhappy. It's a reminder to watch the plants, keep the fans running and the shade properly adjusted. It's the promise of Spring.

Pests!

Rodents and birds can do a lot of damage in a short period of time and some damage won't even be evident until it's really impacted the flower crop. When it's cold and wet outside and the greenhouse or shade house provides protection and warmth and a nice yummy meal of orchid flowers and buds, the results are disastrous.

The last few weeks have been frustrating to say the least. I would walk into the greenhouse in the morning and discover the ravages from the last night's feast for the pests. Dendrobium and Oncidium buds (just ready to open) would be neatly chewed off and whole spikes gnawed off at the base.

Pictures show a white phalaenopsis flower (that the critter stood on, to lop off the buds above)....nice little teeth or claw marks.

The damage occurred while the flower was still a closed bud. It opened normally but with the scalloped edge and bite marks. I cut it ~ 2 weeks ago and it opened nicely and is holding up fairly well....all things considered.

Remedies?? I've tried various rodent baits, mouse traps, rat trap (with and without bacon), sticky boards. The traps and boards were avoided, therefore, useless. They consumed some of the bait but still chewed off orchid buds. I finally got more electronic pest repellers and put them all over, aiming them at the areas most damaged. I also moved all budded and spiking plants to a bench they had not touched. Keeeping my fingers crossed. The damage seems to have slowed down.......significantly........so far........we shall see.

Cymbidium Season

The beginning of cymbidium blooming season for Southern Caifornia is always an exciting, hopeful time. Will those buds space out and open? When? Can I resist the temptation of prying them open without breaking the flower?

This year, Cym. Via Mar Tranquilla "Mt. Cook" led off with the first open sprays of nice big white blooms on erect spikes. They thrive on the windy passing storms and cold weather.

Some of last season's seed pods are maturing now but as usual a few are turning yellow prematurely and splitting.....looking inside for seeds......but finding nothing but a hollow shell. We'll have to try those hybrids again.

Cut Orchids, showy and long lasting

"How can I make my cut orchids last longer....a week, two weeks, three weeks....more??

1. Do not put them in the refrigerator. The fruits and veggies will "put them to sleep".
2. Do keep them in a clean (dishwasher or cloroxed clean) container with sufficient water to keep the cut end of the stem under water.
3. Use a very sharp blade (scissors, safety razor blade, knife) to slice the very end of the stem off to reopen the stem to the water.
4. Orchids are very clean flowers and if the water and container are clean will last much longer if kept in their own separate container, not mixed with field cut flowers.
5. Handle the orchid flowers carefully to prevent removal of the pollen cap. If the pollen cap is detached, the flower feels like it's been pollinated and the flower will start turning pink in the lip and shrivel in anticipation of setting seed.
6. Try to display the cut orchids in the coolest possible location away from direct sunlight, heater vents, etc.
7. If there are multiple blooms on the spike and some of the bottom ones start to fade first, remove the faded flowers. This will help keep the rest of the blooms going a little longer.

21 January 2008 Monday, showers

Good rain showers early this morning. Orchids, cymbidiums especially, love good rainwater. The pseudobulbs swell up and the leaves have a clean fresh sheen. No salty residue, no black tip burn, just clean happy leaves and well hydrated plants. It's worth setting a couple of buckets out and collecting some rainwater this week.



Today's chilly rain is really a change in the weather from last Monday. It was the perfect balmy Santa Ana warmth last Monday for tying up any straying cymbidium spikes. Just be careful not to get a leaf tip or stake tip too close to your eyes. Lots of buds promising to open soon, just don't know exactly which day or week. Also, time to put out more snail bait and keep those critters from chewing on the buds and flowers.

Wilbur Shigehara predicts a milder/wetter winter with only a couple of nights in the 30's and not the dry freeze with temperatures in the 20's for several nights like we experienced last year. We've had a couple of frosty mornings but no really severe low temps........so far.