This sweet little orchid, native to the East coast of Australia, has been amazingly forgiving of some pretty harsh treatment, but hopefully it is now in a spot where it can flourish. It is an epiphyte, growing on a piece of wood on a tree trunk, and has lovely spikes of white flowers in early Spring.
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This has been the runaway success of the orchids I have planted in trees here. Dendrobium nobile takes care of itself high in the fork of a tree above our house, and is making a lovely show on the driveway for Spring.
Read MoreOncidium orchids are great decorative plants for subtropical gardens and apartments. They flower twice in the year, Autumn and Spring, and are ideal for bringing in as a showy houseplant. I have two types; one with sweetly vanilla scented burgundy flowers on very large spikes, and a smaller one with dense spikes of yellow flowers. The yellow one is easy to divide, so I have a few pots which conveniently manage to flower a few weeks apart. The orchid world is full of complex crosses, and Oncidium is a catch-all for…
Read MoreOrchids are amazing! Growing up in Perth with hot bone-dry Summers and wet Winters, I would see them as plants for enthusiasts only, and we didn’t see the huge variety that are available now. When you’ve got the right climate though, they flourish in the toughest spots. In a bit of a faith leap, I planted out a set of orchids into trees above the house back in Winter; these two as well as Dendrobiums and a Cymbidium. It was partly to get them off the ground, where rats were prone…
Read MoreWe don’t have a lot of shade in the garden yet, as all the big trees are sensibly well away from the house, but there are a couple of small rainforest trees above the house, and I’ve used them to house some of my orchids. The Dendrobium nobile is looking quite happy way up in this fork, and has started to flower. I’m afraid I don’t know yet what the tree is, but it is quite common in the region, and holds a lot of lichen on its bark, so…
Read MoreThis is a good climate for having orchids out in trees. Our Summers are warm, wet and humid, so many orchid types like to have their roots in the air or under a light cover of leaf litter. The driveway down to our house has a few old standing stumps and a couple of trees which get a good dappled shade. This Cymbidium had its pot broken in the move (or it might have just burst out of it, they have massive root systems), so I just wedged the root…
Read MoreMy first orchid to flower in the new place. The yellow and burgundy Oncimiums have been gracing (and perfuming) the living room since we moved, but they were already in flower. This one has gone from spike to inflorescence, and survived the possibility of being chewed by whatever lurks under the house at night, although it did lose a terminal bud or two. Until I can secure my greenhouse, I’m glad to get any flowers. This is the lesser, Winter flowering, so I hope to get more in late Spring. I…
Read MoreI asked the back yard orchid guy if he had any Miltonias, and he rather too keenly sold me this one. It is, to be sure, the real Miltonia, but what is usually called Miltonia, and what I was expecting, is the much more showy Miltoniopsis. Still, this one has been an interesting addition to my collection, and fills a flowering gap in later Summer. It is not right for an indoor display though. The colour is not particularly showy, and the flowers are somehow unspectacular. It also has a…
Read MoreThe Phals have been rewarding this year, now that I’ve found the secret to flowering is to keep them indoors for June to August. With the oldies augmented with a couple of newbies that were too good to pass by, they’ve been giving indoor colour for many months, and should continue till Christmas. Next up will be the burgundy Oncimium, I’m guessing in January.
Read MoreOrange flowers seem a little unorthodox for a Phalaenopsis, but they’re lovely just the same. I might try crossing with a standard pink and white, a long-term project but who knows what would result? This year this one is flowering on a new winter spike, and off last year’s spike at the same time. It seems that these flowers are always relatively small.
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