Summer Orchids

Hello everyone!!!!
It's been a while since I posted something...
School is now over for the summer, and I can finally relax just a tinsy winsy bit until Senior year of high school.  Senior year...and then college...and, oh dear, times flies by fast.  It's quite daunting, once I start to sit down and think about it.  Many things have occurred in my life that are mostly exciting.  I have been offered volunteer positions at both the Conservatory of Flowers in San Francisco and at the UC Berkeley Botanical Garden.  I will be working with their orchid collections...and that makes me extremely happy. 

Just last week on Thursday, I went for my first shift at the UC Berkeley Botanical Garden.  It was amazing with soo many orchids that I have never heard of or even dreamed of seeing in my lifetime.  I saw my first Trisetella; I smelled my first lycaste aromatica; I saw my first paphiopedilum sanderianum. I got to repot and touch these orchids with my own hands, learning how to care for orchids on a mass scale.  I'm so excited to start my shifts at the Conservatory of Flowers, and my next shift will be these Friday at Berkeley.  I will be sure to bring my camera this time.

For now, I will like to show you my summer set up for my orchids.  Sorry for the poor quality, it is raining in the Bay Area.  Imagine that, rain in the Bay Area during the summer...when we're supposed to be in a drought.

So I put them in a "greenhouse" that I've had for over a year.  I didn't get to use it because the plastic covering makes the inside of the greenhouse too hot and too dry for healthy orchids.  I'm only using it to keep the rain out from the orchids, otherwise I just use a shadecloth.

 I've put all of my epidendrums, cattleyas, and two large oncidiums on the top. There's also a dendrobium lindenyi out there too.  I've put my only two cymbidiums at the bottom. They usually get a strong east morning sunshine, and protected from the hot noon and afternoon sun from either the umbrella from our patio set or the house.  It is a perfect set up for them in my environment.  The temperature changes of summer is perfect where the no matter how hot the temperature rises...it will always drop back down to the 60's by the ocean breezes coming from the bay.   A perfect setup for beautiful blooms in the fall. 

The only damage I sustained from the move from inside to outside was a bit of burn on my oncidium sharry baby hybrid, but otherwise everything was perfectly fine.

Our pomegranate "wonderful" is fruitful with 4 pomegranates growing beautifully on the branches.  Unfortunately, our pomegranate "pink satin" is growing pomegranates...but they seem to be a bit deformed.  I hope for a better crop next year.  The blueberry season for us is almost over, but the blueberries that came from the bushes were sugary sweet and juicy.  My friends that I've shared the blueberries with at school are still craving for our homegrown blueberries.