I'm writing this month's feature while on a short vacation in beautiful northern Wisconsin. As I'm sitting here on top of the boat house listening to the call of the loons after a good morning of fishing and bald eagle watching with my wife, Karen, and our Rottweiler, Oscar, I started to reflect on the past year. I especially recall this time last year when we were completely buried with product in dire need of repotting that we recently acquired with the Oak Hill transition and feeling like we'll never get caught up. Well, here we are one year later and nearly every plant has been given a fresh start with new growing media and a new pot. Thanks greatly in part to the volunteer help we received from our local society, The Orchid Grower's Guild.
In this past year of growing I have seen some amazingly robust growth in some species and felt it may be time to toot our horn a little. It's difficult to provide the necessary information for our plants regarding their size and growth increments with the small area to post information on our website, so I would like to take this opportunity to better describe some of our stock that I feel has done remarkably well this past year.
One particular species that really stands out is our Cattleya trianae v. coerulea in the 4.5 inch clay pot. Since transplanting last summer, these have more than doubled in size with multiple new growths which have already produced their sheaths for their winter/spring blooming. It has been reported to me that our customers have been able to re-sell these at very high prices, proving that the faint blue color of this particular species is highly sought after in the Cattleya species world. Standing about ten inches, these somewhat compact plants pack a real punch when flowering season arrives. We will no doubt be raising our price on these very soon. Most of these plants will be dividable by this time next year. Get yours now before the price increases!
Another Cattleya species that has really jumped into action this past year is our mossiae semi-alba in 6 inch pots. The new growths are nearly fully grown and starting to sheath now as well. This species is known for its high flower production and I won't be surprised to see 4-5 huge blooms per growth next spring! Fragrant and showy, this species has been a long-standing favorite among orchid species lovers.
One other Cattleya that is nearly flying up out of their pots is the Cattleya (syn. Laelia) purpurata in the 2.5 and 3 inch pots. Both the standard form and the carnea form have really burst into growth from last summer and taken off with a nice tall new growth this summer. They are so robust that they could use an up-potting just about any time now! With the growth increments that these plants are displaying they will no doubt be blooming size in less than 3 years.
Cymbidium orchid popularity is on an upswing again and I can't wait to see our crop come into spike this season. Our stock of miniature to intermediate size Cymbidium consists of pink, red, white, yellow and green. These should be setting spike very soon and as they do we will be posting that information on our in-spike/bud section. Our relatively mild summer has been very kind to our cool growing orchids here and with that we have seen multiple new growths on these Cymbidiums.
With the hundreds of different orchids in our stock there are many more that I would like to crow about in this edition but unfortunately space does not allow. I feel it is necessary to occasionally let our customers know the particulars in how some of our plants are progressing and with that, I will periodically be writing more editions like this one. I hope this summer has produced phenomenal growth in your orchids as well!
