Oncidium

Oncidium ochmatachilum - taken with the new camera at night. Not bad!
This one is a species and comes from SE Mexico to Peru. They like a seasonal dry season. We sure got that this year.

I finally got out and fertilised the orchids yesterday with a high nitrogen solution. Come on growing season!

Chewed flower

Dendrobium loddegesii - my first photo with the new camera, the Canon EOS digital. Something ate one of the flowers!
This is a species from China and Vietnam. It's actually pinker than this photo suggests. I took this in full sun. The flowers are quite large considering the plant and the leaves are very small and compact. The flowers are about 2-3 cm across! I find I can get closer with the standard lens and the auto focus on this camera than I can on the old Canon 35mm. I don't really want to buy that macro lens....

Rhynchovanda Thailand '"Kultana'

Mum bought me this one at the Caboolture Orchid Show in 98. It's flowered twice a year ever since. It's difficult to get a good photo because the colour is so pale. This is the best photo I've taken so far.

Rhynchovanda is an intergeneric hybrid - a cross between a vanda orchid and a rhynchostylis orchid. This type of orchid is referred to as a vandaceous type. It grows best in a hanging basket. It loves the heat and lots of watering in warm weather. This one has no fragrance but, on the good side, the flowers last about 6 weeks on the plant.

I really must get out in the shadehouse this weekend and start repotting. Some of the orchids are starting to grow out of their pots and onto the benches!

We've had a lot of showery rain and everything is now green. The orchids are not, however, sending out new growth. That's probably because I don't fertilise enough....

Dancing Lady

I can't believe the yellow of this one, it's so bright. It's Oncidium Taka also from Aranbeem Nursery. Onc Taka is a Japanese hybrid but I don't know the parents.
It always flowers so easily for me, huge arching sprays. This plant has been inside for 2 weeks impressing my visitors.(What visitors?) Well, I enjoy it.

Brassia Rex - Wow!

I hadn't been out to shadehouse for a few days due to the rain. Also it's dark when I get home from being a corporate slave all day. Yesterday I got away early - look what was there to surprise me! I didn't even know it had a spike. It's Brassia Rex 'Sukutu'.
I bought it from Aranbeem Nursery in 1998 as a very small plant. It has a huge flower, very spider like. Brassia Rex is a primary hybrid between species Brs. verrucosa and Brs. gireoudiana. These species come from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and some of the Caribbean Islands. I guess Brisbane has a similar climate to some of these places. This orchid is my kind of plant because it grows so easily without any care at all except for some liquid fertiliser.

It's raining!

It's raining! And has been raining for a few days! Just in time really because the lawn was a brown crackly dying thing....and I was starting to think I might loose some tree ferns.

Brisbane' s drought has not broken yet or course. We need a lot more rain this spring before we are out of trouble.

This is Ascda Suksamran Sunlight, another one from Brighton Orchid Nursery. It's a beauty and flowers a couple of times a year. Brisbane is most suited to Ascacendas I reckon. But due to the dry conditions I haven't noticed much new growth this spring. Hopefully those root tips will start growing with their little green shoots NOW it has rained.

I don't have any daylight time to go out tot he shadehouse when I get home from work.

But I'm looking forward to seeing signs of spring growth on Saturday morning!

Yellow flowers

This is Den jenkinsii. I bought it from an old bloke called Gordon Rath in June 1999. At least that's what my list says. I thnik we went to his house one Saturday afternoon as new members of the orchid club and he had a few for sale on slabs of tree fern. Well, I have not moved it from it's host and finally, over the last 2-3 years, it has rewarded me with the most amazing buttercup yellow flowers. It's a species and looks a lot like Den crysotoxum to me. I had one of those too but it died.

Den jenkinsii is in flower right now, in the middle of Brisbane's spring drought. Last spring I didn't get any flowers, they were all chewed off. Thsi year there is not an many insects around due to the drought.

Vasco Pine Rivers "Narangba"

This is Vasco Pine Rivers "Narangba" which I bought from Brighton Orchids in 1998. It's been flowering every year for at least the last two years. A Vasco is an intergeneric orchid, a cross between a Vanda and something else, an Ascda, I think.
All the orchids I have bought from Brighton Orchids here in Narangba, Brisbane, are so reliable! And this one is obviously one of their own excellent creations. The flowers are so perfect and the colour is exquisite.

Digital photos

I use a digital camera, namely the Kodak 5 mega pixel with a 10 times zoom. I find it's easy to use but sometimes I can't get close enough to an orchid to do it justice. So I do sometimes still use my 35mm Canon EOS. But mostly my photos are taken with the digital camera!
This cattleya is one I jst call the Green Cat. I can't remember who gave it to me and I've lost the name tag. But it always so beautiful and I just love this photo in dappled sunlight under my back patio.

Dendrobium Hilda Poxon

Dendrobium Hilda Poxon is one of my favourite Australian orchids. It's a hybrid made with species Den speciosum and Den tetragonum. It's quite a big, eye catching flower, very spider like. It has a fragrance too!

My Orchids

I love orchids. I live in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia and I plan to use this blog to archive my photos of my own flowering orchids.
The above photo is of my Dendrobium farmerii which is flowering right now in October. It reminds me of fried eggs. The flowers are quite small and hang down from a hanging basket.
I have a large shadehouse in my back garden which houses about 300 orchids. That's not many by some orchid grower's standards here in Brisbane. But it's enough for someone who works full time in an office in the city!
I usually have one or two orchids in flower at any one time. I always take a photo and I keep a list of all the orchids I own too.
I am an amateur but I have been growing them since I moved to Brisbane from South Australia about 12 years ago. I was a member of the Pine Rivers Orchid Society but I found it difficult to attend a meeting till 10pm at night while I'm working- even one night a month.
So now I just grow orchids but I'm not in a club. It's a solitary hobby for me - but that's ok. After a hard week at the office there's nothing I like better than time in the shadehouse with just the dog sniffing around for company. I water and fertilise, repot and trim dead foliage and swear loudly if I find any buds chewed off!
And there's nothing better than walking in after a few days and finding new flowers!

Lynda