Phal-Harlequin Update

Pineapples. Lovely, lovely pineapples. I should probably go and buy one, plant it on my windowsill and watch it flourish. I'm in a sunnier region of the country these days. There's far less rain here, but far more snow, even in April!

Righto.

My Harlequin isn't looking so hot these days.

I propped it up against a clay pot I have, in which I'm growing several Heirloom tomatoes. Why does it need propping? It's the limpest leaf I've ever seen. And it's just the one. Those two and a half roots you see there? They're browning. One, on the far right in the foreground is all shriveled.

I can only assume the cause of the limp is too much water and not enough sun, while the yellowing and browning is caused by too much sun, while the lack of under-mix root system is caused by too much water, allowing for root-rot to flourish. Is this the end of my beautiful speckled Harlequin?


To better days...

Not-so-simple Cymbidiums

Seems like forever ago...

Well, a lot has happened with my Cym, mostly things only working to further its demise. I moved it from my room, which didn't provide it with much light (apparently my room is on the wrong side of the house...), to my brother's room, which is unoccupied at the moment and gets a good blast of sun each day, if there's sunlight to be had, that is.
Before moving it, I took notice of this raised spot on one of the leaves. I wasn't sure what it was, but thought that upon closer inspection I might discover the truth of the matter. I did. Kind of.

I at least found out that what I thought was an issue was just the tip of the iceberg, to facilitate an over-used expression. Yep, something was, based on what I now know, clawing their way inside my orchid and eating its insides for brunch. Mm, brunch.

So, once my Cym made its way into my li'l brudders room it received much more light, and love, because I made a point of checking on it more often than was regular since it wasn't there for me when I woke up.

Unfortunately, it lost a lot of its leaves, mostly from the aforementioned bug-eating junkers. It was made into brunch.

Browning bulbs; they were squishy and wrinkled.

After losing many, many leaves, I took note of how several of the bulbs were turning brown. I was very distressed. At the front, bottom-most part of the above picture you can see one of the smaller bulbs, leaf-less, brown, mushy. In other words, completely dead. The bulb on the right side of the picture was in a similar state. I removed both.

So, yesterday I posted some pleas for help on two orchid forums, and need to post some photos up there, which is partially why I include these photos, and partially because I know that you, dear reader, are eager to learn of my Cym's current conditions.

Third-youngest stalk,
notice the colour.

Dissection of the third-youngest stalk.
It smelled like death.

White substance (mold?) on the base
of a leaf from an old bulb.

These pictures break my heart.

Lovely Cymbidium!

I looked up some information online regarding Cymbidiums and for some reason a whole lot was mentioned about mealybugs and spider mites. Mealybugs are irritating little whitish bugs, males eventually growing wings and only living to fertilize eggs laid by the female; ants assist in protecting them by keeping away their predators. Spider mites tend to live on the undersides of leaves, spinning silky webs there, and puncture the leaves to eat the plant cells.

I noticed on my initial once-over that my cym had some strange little webs attached to it. I hadn't seen any spiders, so I connected the dots after having read about spider mites. I took a little flashlight and searched quite closely for any pests, finding only more webs and small round gray things... I think they may have been the mealybugs. I found some clumps of winged insects attached to some of the webs. Thankfully they were dead, but I could see the wings, so it wasn't inspiring. I cleaned off all the leaves and the spike so that I would be able to tell if anything was currently spinning any webs, causing any weird black peel-off splotches, etc. While going through this I dug around a bit in the media. Much to my horror I discovered a huge underground web. I didn't hang out long enough to find any pests, but that's all I needed to inspire me to ask some of my online communities for help.

While digging around I took notice of a few webs and more small gray circle bug/things in between the bulbs.

The roots are absurd and pathetic. The cym is in bloom but I'm considering re-potting it.

Unfortunately my cat's interest in my orchid is the least of my worries.

My birthday orchid!

So, I just had my birthday, that means the land of Vancouver is a new and exciting one. I got home on the 30th after spending a week at my dad's place and was surprised when my mom told me she had bought me an orchid! Of course she was threatening it when she let me know a local store had a huge selection of them, but were sold out when she went back to buy one. And she knows I'm completely obsessed with them after finding I was able to re-bloom my Harlequin.

I'm currently working at getting this orchid identified. It said it was a Cymbidium, but I'm more interested in what kind of Cym it is. So far, Featherhill Fanfare and Dryad seem like good candidates, but I'm always unsure. Alas.
















In any case, it's gorgeous and matches my phal, which is funny; I wasn't sure if she did it on purpose or if it was just an accident, so I asked her - turns out it was completely coincidental. She chose it because she liked it, looks like we have the same taste!

I was advised on one of the forums I'm a member of to put some cinnamon on the spike of my cut phal as a fungicide. I've not really had any major issues with this phal like insects or black rot or anything like that, but I thought I may as well, as a precautionary measure.

I've not done anything differently with it except for the cinnamon, and since dabbing some on the cut, my phal has developed these strange little bumps on it's spike. It has me quite worried.

O Summer, where hast thou gone?

It's been a good long time, and I'm no longer in contact with Samapple.. We had a falling out of sorts. I've got a replacement for Samapple though. I won't unveil it yet, however.

Now, I figure I'll post some photos of my sweet Orchid, because it's beauty tends to fade, and will do so in about three months (which is typically when the flowers will fall off). I didn't know this, but with a little looking around (read: Google), I discovered the name of this particular orchid; It's known as an Elegant Harlequin. Pretty sweet. Maybe a little promiscuous, but I love it all the same. And now, without further adieu!

Here it was as of July 2010.

And because my room has a North-facing window and wasn't giving it any sunshine, I moved my Phal(aenopsis) downstairs to our South-facing window. It did really well there, and here it is as of today.

In this photo you can see the little bud that refuses to bloom. It's just right of the flower on the left in the foreground.


And here is a close-up of my pride and joy.


A friend of mine said that if she can't provide her mini-orchid with sufficient care (she's been doing a lot of over-time at work) she would give it to me, since I'm the only one she knows that has been able to get an orchid to re-bloom. I thought that funny since I haven't found my orchid to be too much of a difficulty in terms of re-blooming. It's just taken a lot of patience.

Sweet, sweet Samapple...

OK, so I wandered to the garden and took some photos of my sweet, sweet Samapple. And her twin. The thought of the "other one" nearly makes me shudder.

You see, Samapple's Twin was born with a defective head, where her stem and head make a 90° angle. Odd, right? Well, that's what I think is the cause of this lack of growth.

On the other hand, Samapple is growing beautifully. Sweet, sweet Samapple.

I do wonder on occasion how Katapple is... Although, there hasn't yet been a Katapple as far as I know. I was at Sam's joint on Saturday and I saw no signs of Pineapply goodness. I did see a cat that was the exact same as one of mine, and that was weird, but no Pineapple babies.

Alas, Kat

Samapple and Friends

Well, it's been ages, and I thought an update was in order. Samapple is snug as a bug in our indoor garden, although Samapple's twin isn't doing so well. I think I'll sneak around in the night and take Samapple's twin away, that way she won't have to endure watching her twin whither and die.

Am I not merciful?

Samapple's friend is doing quite well itself, even though it didn't look that way during the winter months. Samapple's friend is an orchid, and requires quite a bit more care than any Pineapple baby I've yet met. The orchid is nameless right now. Any suggestions?

For the longest time the orchid was just a stick with five leaves. One leaf has since kicked the bucket, and the stick is finally budding - which is much more interesting. Have a look for yourself... Yes, there's a rock next to it on that ledge, and yes, they're friends. I think I'll name that rock... Jonas.

Right now I really can't be bothered to take photos of Samapple, so I'll do that later and put them in the next post.

Until then, auf Wiedersehen,
Samapple's mom.