Maxillaria Tenuifolia

Finally it has bloomed! The infamous, the easy- to- grow, the finicky bloomer....maxillaria tenfuifolia.
I've had this plant for almost a year now, and it has finally decided to bloom.
It smells heavenly of coconut/ cream/ chocolate ---> it just smells so sweet.
The color is burgundy and the flowers 4 1/2 cm across. I've got three of these sweeties in bloom, and I've got plenty more emerging from the sheathes of the pseudobulbs. 

My cultural tips:
Watering: Keep the medium well watered and don't let the pseudobulbs get shriveled.  I was having a problem with shriveled bulbs with my once a week watering in a fine bark mix, so I changed it to hydroponics.
Light: Bright light.  The leaves should be a grassy green to light green.  A east window is ideal.  It could also be grown with cattleyas.  It is also okay if the leaves get burned a little bit.
Feeding: Honestly, I haven't fed my orchids for about a year now.  All of them are blooming healthily and happily.  But rule of thumb: weekly, weakly.
Flowering: Warmth + high light = good blooms.  I've learned that the hard way.  You could also throw in a temperature difference into the equation, but I didn't find that as important as warmth and high light.
Temp:  They like warm temperatures to bloom.  I've grown them in temperatures ranging from 50's to 60's, they grow new pseudobulbs and such... just no flowers.

* hope this helps to whoever is having trouble getting this species to bloom.

Pacific Orchid Expo 2013

What....

an....

amazing....

show....

 It was an orchid mecca. No, that doesn't even do the show justice. It was ORCHID HEAVEN.  I had an amazing experience from getting new orchids to even winning an orchid prize. Yes, you heard me. I WON FIRST PLACE IN THE SEVENTEEN AND UNDER CATEGORY!!!!! 

Dendrobium Amethystoglossum

The award is given to orchid growers who are seventeen and under.  This was my first and last year for this award, and I was so happy when they gave it to me.  It is called "The Imperiale Youth Prize" and it consists of a certificate, a handmade dracula pin and pendant, a handmade glass plate of a vanda of the POE 2013, and a large ribbon. 

I had so much trouble with this orchid.  The flowers of the Dendrobium Amethystoglossum only last about a week, so I had to time the blooming perfectly.  As a matter of fact, the orchid began to bloom just three days before I was supposed to enter it, and four days before it was supposed to be judged.  The ordeal of getting an orchid ready for a show is something that is both stressful and rewarding.  I am so thankful of my parents for driving me to and from San Francisco, a 45 min drive, for three days.   They even let me go to San Francisco on a school night to drop off an orchid.  I really need to give my parents the "Parents of the Year" award.

To add onto the experience:  I volunteered at the Plant Hotel during the show, and burned through my entire Chinese New Year money on 8 new orchids.  The orchids unfortunately are not in bloom, so I'm not going to bother paste pictures of them until they are in bloom. 

List of Orchids: 

1. Slc. Dream Weaver

2. Pot. Rubescence x Slc. Scarlet Jewel

3. Pot. Hisako Akatsuka x Slc Jungle Jewel

4. Dendrobium aggregatum 

5. Cymbidium Sinense

6. Cymbidium Hybrid 

7. Pleione Formosana

8. Cattleya Forbesii...........................................I was really into the small orchids because I didn't have enough space for any large/tall orchids that I couldn't grow outside. 

Enough talking, here's some pics from the show: 

Outside Entrance of the Show

San Francisco Orchid Society Display....there was also a car which we couldn't fit into the picture

Lycaste in one of the exhibits

One of the Exhibits

Masdevallia

Masdevallia

Pleione

Masdevallia

Cattleya

Orchids that were being Sold:

One of my favorite booths....so many beautiful cattleyas

Cattleya

Cattleya

Paph

Cymbidium Hybrid I bought

Cattleya

Cattleya

Miltoniopsis Hybrid

$40 Dendrobium Hybrid from a Taiwanese vendor....it's as small as the nail on my thumb

Free Time

It's a four day weekend, and I spent the second day of it watercoloring. It's supposed to be a gift for one of my mom's colleagues.

A Fresh Start

Finally, it's over!  My first semester of junior year is over, and I have two more semesters to go before I need to worry about college acceptance/rejection letters.   Anyways, it's been a while since I last updated anything.  I'm just so busy with homework, studying, badminton, and everything else that a teenager has to go through.  These are a couple of highlights in the month of January and February.

This is a project that I completed around winter break.  I felt artsy one day...and decided to paint one of my favorite orchids in watercolor.  

 

My Dendrobium Amethystoglossum decided to bloom.  This was seriously a result of managed neglect.  This is the first time that I ever gave an orchid a "winter rest" where you're not supposed to water it for months and keep it on the cool side.  I tried it out, starting it from the month of November to maybe before Winter Break.  I placed it outside in my little plastic greenhouse that I got from my local Lowe's one Christmas, and forgot about it for a couple of weeks.  Then I brought it upstairs to water it in my bathroom where there's little to no sunlight, and forgot to take it out of the bathroom for maybe two weeks.  One day, when I was brushing my teeth, I noticed these little green nobs poking out from the canes. Viola! Dendrobium Amethystoglossum spikes, and not only one but four spikes.

A MAXILLARIA TENUIFOLIA SPIKE!!!! AHHH SO EXCITED!!!I was first introduced to this orchid when visiting Napa Valley Orchid's greenhouse, and my mom and I wanted to have this orchid so badly because it smelled like coconut (though my mom swears it smells like chocolate).  But the owner, Debra, deterred us from buying it from her because the blooms weren't as spectacular as she would have liked.  Anyways, I got this orchid from Kawamoto orchids last year around April and it hasn't decided to bloom until this month.   I think I might have cracked the code of how to make a finicky Maxilaria Tenuifolia to bloom.  I put it in my east window with the leaves pressing against class (it usually involves a couple of burned tips). It's upstairs where the heater is on most of the night and most of the day if somebody is home --> about 70 degrees everyday.   Also...it's in hydroponics. That could also be a factor.  I've got 5 of these spikes, and some more are popping out between the dead sheaths every week.  I can't wait to smell it!

Backyard Finds

Though this post has nothing to do with orchids, I wanted to share with everyone some of the cool stuff that thrives in my backyard.  It's currently winter, so everything is either dead looking or overrun with clovers.  So during the spring, I'll take more pictures of our fruit trees, vines, and bushes.  This is just a preview.

A "misty blueberry" bush.  It's actually the name, and it's lived up to it.  California's Bay Area either has a wet season and a dry season.  My dad coined the term "wet Christmas" as a parody to the classic Christmas song "White Christmas".  Anyways, this is a beautiful picture of what frost does to the plants in my yard, and how the Bay Area's constant sunny skies does to the cycle of deciduous plants. BLUEBERRIES IN THE MIDDLE OF WINTER!!! weird....

I'm not quite sure what bug it is on this grapevine, but it's pretty.  Most grapevines stop growing and start dropping their leaves during the winter...well, this one is still growing strong though it's December.  Hopefully we can get some grapes this summer....

IT'S A CRICKET!....I think.

December Bloomers 2012!

It's been a while since I've updating anything, sorry.  It's currently winter break and I can finally squeeze in a little time in between studying for finals, the SATs, and AP Physics, AND AP STATS!  Gah...it's a miracle that I haven't died from exhaustion.  Anyways, with December comes...orchid bloomers!

Oh FYI, these pictures are taken with a Nikon D90 with a Nikon AF-S Micro Nikkor 40mm lens.

 This is a NOID cymbidium that has been growing all summer long, and has finally given me two spikes with 6 buds each with two or three more spikes on the way. I still can't tell the difference between a new growth or a new spike on a cymbidum...they just look too similar....
Mom has been trying to tell me that the blooms this year are not as pretty as last year...which sinks my heart a little.  Sigh...they're pretty to me.

*I need to figure out how to put emoticons on blogger.....

My potinara hoku gem "freckles" is bloom for first time since I bought in July.  The colors just keep changing...When I first bought it was lava red.  Now it's turning orange, red, yellow, and magenta....So weird.

My oncidium twinkle "fragrance fantasy".  It has four spikes with tens of flowers.  It's rumored to be extremely fragrant, but I haven't gotten the chance to smell it because either the rain of the Bay Area's winter blocks out the sun or I leave too early in the morning for school for the sun to intensify the scent.  Hopefully the clouds will clear up soon so I can smell it.



 My epicattleya rene marques "flamethrower" is in bloom for the third time this year.  The thing is that the spikes takes FOREVER to grow.  The new growth from the plant began to grow at the end of spring this year, and I saw the spike emerging around September, and It only started to form buds at the end of November.  This plant can really test your patience...but it's all worth it once you see the flowers.

Hydroponics

Brr. Nelly Isler "swiss beauty"

I have finally experimented with hydroponics....and it is the greatest thing that the orchid gods could have created.  I absolutely love the system.  It saves me time and money.  The orchids, after established in the system, begin to grow like weeds with new roots.  I use clear tupperware containers with holes that I drill for the reservoir about an inch from the bottom.  This system saves water and saves watering time. The only drawback is that you have to be careful with the type of water you use and flushing out the salts from fertilizers.  It is best to use rainwater or distilled rainwater, because bad water can lead to root rot.  I learned that the hard way...

I only change my orchids into the system when it is actively growing where new roots and new growth are emerging.  I remove all of its old potting medium and then pot it up again with the clay pellets like any other orchids.  Then I put into a makeshift greenhouse which is basically a plastic fish tank with a white opaque garbage bag covering the top to keep the humidity in.  I keep it in the environment until I see some new roots growing, which is usually about two weeks.  Then viola...done!

I have tried this system on four of my orchids and am going to change most of my orchids into the system once I find the appropriate pots.  Oh yeah, you know the pain the butt I which I have called my miltoniopsis...yeah. It's growing new roots and new shoots ever since I changed it into hydroponics.  I guess I can only grow miltoniopsis in hydroponics for now.

Mommy Milt. Maui Mist "Golden Gate"

Maxillaria Tenuifolia

Milt. Maui Mist "Golden Gate"

Paph. Napa Valley "maudie"