New Orchids

We couldn't help but buy these orchids, they were too nice to pass up. We normally haunt the past bloom plant shelves for orchids because they're so expensive but these were unusual so we decided to pay full price for them.




This is a Zygopetalum orchid. Specifically Zygoneria 'Adelaide Meadows' an Austrailian hydrid. From the ABC.net.au website: "Some twenty species (of Zygopetalum orchids) from Central and South America were largely ignored during the last 100 years because the flowers looked too similar, but now hybridists have been able to obtain the sought after diversity."

"For many years zygopetalum had a chocolate coloured flower, but by incorporating the allied genera neogardineria with zygopetalum, a green flower has been produced. This variety is known as zygonaria, which is a more compact plant with much better colour combinations including lots of spots, splashes and stripes, and many blooms that have a much sweeter perfume. Zygoneria ‘Adelaide Meadows’ is a good example of this."

I don't detect a perfume on the plant we bought.

Apparently there are many different kinds of 'Adelaide Meadows'. Ours was un-named so I don't know what it is.






This is a Beallara (Cambria) 'Eurostar' orchid. The Beallara orchid, has many parents including Odontoglossum, Oncidium, Miltonia and Brassia, so you can see the characteristics of the parents in the flowers. Apparently this is an easy to grow hybrid and tolerates normal home temperatures.

I re-potted the orchids in the morning drizzle. We thought they just came with a top dressing of sphagnum moss but the orchids were actually planted in sphagnum which is not a good planting medium because it retains too much moisture causing the roots to rot. The Beallara turned out to be two plants so I put a plant in separate pots and now we have three orchids instead of two.



Addendum:

We bought several portable indoor greenhouses to keep the humidity high in the winter. The forced air heating is otherwise just too drying for orchids. They usually have them at Lowes but I’ve only seen the greenhouses sold in Spring. Maybe they can special order it for you if you want one. This is what it looks like.

Portable greenhouse

I think it cost less than $50. We place a large shallow pan filled with water on the bottom rung with a small cheap fan circulating the air so mold and mildew doesn’t become a problem. We run the fan only during daylight hours when the indirect light of the sun heats up the inside and creates condensation on the plastic.

We bought a blooming Dendrobium several years ago and although it grew well indoors in our portable greenhouse, it refused to bloom. Last year the nursery woman told us that she put her orchid outdoors all summer under shade when the temperatures didn’t fall below 50f. So we put the Dendrobiums outside and Oncidiums too which also didn’t bloom and voila, they both sent out sprays of flowers. The Dendrobiums can actually take quite a bit of light though I wouldn’t put it in direct overhead sunlight but we placed the orchid where it got some morning light and dappled light through most of the day.

The other thing we learned about orchid culture is don’t overwater! I just read an article that said more orchids are killed by being waterlogged than any other cause. Here's a good general orchid growing site if you are interested in trying to grow some in the future. Just be aware that orchid culture can become addicting.