Southern Cali Trip Final

What you're greeted with when you enter

 On our way back to the Bay Area, we stopped by Cal-Orchid Nursery.
I had deep feeling of regret of not going there when we visited Santa Barbara Orchid Estate on our first day. Cal Orchid was right next Santa Barbara Orchid Estate.  I'm not kidding!  When you drive into this little road called "Orchid" (such an original name...) on the left side are the gates to the Santa Barabara Orchid Estate, and down the road on the right side are the gates to the Cal-Orchid Nursery.

Still, I needed to clear my head from the shopping spree from Day 1.  I think the the 24 hours lapse between the first nursery and the second day was a good time frame to clear my head.  Orchids tend to fog your mind...and all rationality that one has.  So here, I got a healthy Lycaste Aromatica which I learned was from Golden Gate Orchids owned by Tom Perlite.  HE'S RETIRING!!! I'm so sad, right now. Both my mom and I exclaimed "What????" when we heard the news from the extremely nice owner.

But yeah...the greenhouse was clean and well organized.  Something that is very hard to find in most orchid nurseries I've been to.  There was a barbeque going on with guacamole and chips.  It had a very homey feeling to the entire open house.  I think...this is on my favorite nursery list. 

Again...sorry for the lack of names. At least in this round of orchid pics, I can recognize a lot more orchids and my dad accidentally took a picture of the names along with the orchids. 

Neofinetia Falcata Hybrid

Agraceum (I really regret not getting this orchid, so much history dating back to Darwin's Origin of Species)

Lycaste

Encyclia

Vanda

Southern Cali Trip Day 2

Not only did we visit orchid nurseries, but we also stopped by the Huntington Conservatory and Library in Los Angeles.  The gardens there were spectacular, but their orchid collection was a bit neglected.  They had a lot of stanhopeas that were in spike, but most of their cool growing mounted orchids were just leaves that were being invaded by moss.  Since it was summer, not a lot of their species orchids were in bloom.  Fortunately, their oncidiums, paphiopedilums, maxillaria tenuifolia, and a brassavolas nodosas were blooming happily.

This is the scene that you are greeted with when you enter the Huntington greenhouse.  The building is a majestic  Victorian greenhouse full of hidden surprises.  I was a bit disappointed because many of the orchids didn't have tags...so when I thought I knew the name of an orchid, I was never quite sure if it was really the name.  Sigh...crazy orchid lady problems.

Amorphallus Titanum

         I was first introduced to the weird growing pattern of the cocao tree when I was touring the greenhouses at the Conservatory of Flowers with my supervisor, Eric.  Normally, flowers of fruit trees grow at the tip of new leaf growth.  But with the cocao tree (the source of delicious chocolate), the small, fragile, white flowers grow on the hard branches or on the trunk which will be fertilized and be matured into the yellow seed pods you see in the picture.

The other picture is of a flower that is quite popular at both the UC Berkeley Botanical Gardens and at the Huntington Conservatory.  What you see in the picture is a almost blooming size leaf of the Amorphallus titanum...and when it blooms it will be a large, ugly flower that smells like corpses.  Wonderful, ain't it?

A Pretty View from the Chinese Garden

A grape bonsai that I dream to grow when I'm a old lady.

Southern Cali Trip Day 1

Thank you for patiently waiting for my posts!
I've been extremely busy, and it took me a while to get the nerve to write something.
Anyways, a week ago my parents and I went down to L.A. to see my long lost cousins from Texas. They are such cuties, one is named Amber and the other is named Andy. Luckily, it was also the same weekend as the Santa Barbara Orchid Estate Summer Open House and the Cal-Orchid open house.  So, orchids galore!!!

So I shall recount the adventure from the Santa Barbara Orchid Estate sale, the first place we stopped.
There I was able to get three orchids:

Encyclia Cochleata

 The three orchids that I got were an Encyclia cochleata, a small sarcochilus ceciliae, and  Barkeria Lindleyana.
My mom gave these orchids for me as a "good job" presents on getting straight A's during second semester and getting a 5s and 4s on my AP tests.

Large specimen size sarcophilus ceciliae

The potting for these orchids are a bit weird because the nursery uses rocks as a potting medium instead of the traditional bark or sphagnum moss.  Still, the orchids are high quality and at a reasonable price especially
 since they have unusual species starting from $17.













Now for some lovely pics of the flowers being sold there....I'm sorry that most of the orchids don't have names, since my dad took the pictures.  He thinks more about the beauty of the flowers instead of the names of flowers.  But if you really have fallen in love with one of the orchids here, you can find most of the orchids on the Santa Barbara Orchid Estate website( here: Santa Barbara Orchid Estate Home Page). I'm just a bit lazy to sift through all the orchid pictures to find the names... ^_^

Vanda Paki

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. 

Watercolor III

I felt really stressed these past couple of days because it's three weeks until AP exams and one week until the May SAT, and I needed to de-stress myself.  My solution...watercolor my orchids.  So here's Friday night's work:

It's a masdevallia charisma.  I personally do not grow it in my collection. I feel masdevallia's are a pain to grow because they like humid and cool conditions.  Unless I have a terrarium, I stray away from masdevallias.  But, masdevallia charisma is my favorite of the masdevallias. 

Hanging Gardens' masdevallia charisma

Junior Prom 2013

Yay! Junior Prom is this Saturday!!!
My school's Junior/Senior prom will be held at California's Academy of Sciences in SAN FRAN!!!!
SO EXCITED!

According to tradition, the girl gives the guy a boutonniere and the guy gives the girl a corsage.  Most corsages are made of either roses and ORCHIDS.... So this is where I come in...

I had several orchids blooming, so I decided to make orchid corsage for just two bucks.  It was a steal.  I had to have some way to compete with Safeway and Fremont Flowers...Also, I didn't have much color to choose from. 

So here are my finished pieces.
This is my favorite.  I used a japanese maple leaf and an ivy leaf. 

Cymbidium with maple leaf

Cymbidium with leaves and a random pink flower

Cymbidium with ivy leaf and random leaf

Phalaenopsis with Ivy leaf

Spring Fever

 
Spring time comes with a new cycle of growth.  Either be it orchids or just things that you see around every day life.  My hobbies is not exclusively growing orchids.  Before orchids, there came fruiting trees and pretty flowers.  You know, the regular stuff that you find at your local Home Depot garden section.

So, as a tangent to my plant loving obsession I've included some things growing in my backyard and neighborhood.

Here are some pictures of what I deduce as sakura blossoms in my neighborhood.  They are so pretty especially when there is a slight breeze. The trees shower you with these light pink petals covering the streets with a blanket of pink petals. 

Here are some things that are growing in our backyard.  We moved into our house about a year ago and we haven't had any time to actually do some landscaping.  I'm planning some major renovations during the summer once hectic junior year subsides. My dad grows blueberries.  We grow "misty", "o'neal", "patriot", and "pink lemonade".  All of them are growing huge and fruitful. 

My little columbine.  This is one of my favorite flowers.  We have 2 pomegranate trees a "wonderful" and a "pink satin".  We also have a persimmon tree "hachiya" variety.  And a Osmanthus bush that my dad recently attained a couple of weeks ago.   I tried to grow bleeding hearts and a peony bush last year, but that failed with the clay soil in my backyard.  So I tried them again in better soil and they are growing lovely green leaves.  Hopefully I can get some blooms this year.