My day five plant’s diminutive size belies its venerable age. I would guess that I’ve had this little orchid for at least twenty years. It is Restrepia guttulata and it was purchased at Baker and Chantry Orchids in Woodinville long ago when my siblings and I used to visit there regularly.
Here is the plant today:
This plant’s happiness has been elusive at times and occasionally and randomly stumbled upon. I had divided it at one point and had three healthy plants, but two of them passed away in the last year, so I’m left with this seemingly healthy plant.
Below are some photos of the plants in bloom. The flowers are so striking and strange–I just love them!
For care, though I’m obviously no expert, these plants seem to want moisture, but not wet, cool weather and they like to be fed, but not too much at once. I think the two plants died because I fed them too much. And they seem to bloom whenever they feel like it, usually in the spring, but other times too.
Today’s plant is really two plants. I purchased this Vetheimia bracteata from Sky Nursery about six years ago. I remember it was half-price, so that’s how I felt justified in purchasing it. It is a winter-grower, so it leafs out starting in November and then blooms in early spring. I pulled one of the larger offsets into its own pot several years ago with the intention of sharing it with brother Tim. That offset is finally growing really well and has a flower spike coming this year, so I will pass it on to Tim so he can enjoy the bloom.
Tim’s offset also is getting an offset.
There are three bulbs in the original pot now–not sure which ones will bloom this year, if any.
These plants seem happy in a mix of 1/2 potting soil, 1/2 coarse sand. I keep them in trays and water from the bottom for most of the year, but they get sprinkled in the summer when I shower all the greenhouse plants. Despite being dormant at that time, they don’t seem to mind. I add fertilizer to the trays so that the water carries it to the roots with every water–just a general organic balanced feed in powder form. Sometimes I also add compost tea bags to the trays.
Below is a photo of the main plant spiking last year.
And here are photos of the plant in bloom from several years back:
For care, it seems like these need to be repotted about every three years and some offset removed, or a much larger pot used to hold them. I have them in clay pots to help ensure drainage doesn’t become a problem. Giving them steady water once they start into growth is important–they don’t need to be moist, but just watered somewhat regularly to support their growth and flowering.
I’ll highlight a greenhouse veteran for day three–my giant Coelogyne cristata orchid. This plant and I started in a love/hate relationship after I ordered it off of eBay. In one of my houseplant books, an Australian grower had a giant one of these orchids that covered itself with fragrant bloom every year–so that was the dream.
Mine grew and bloomed a bit those first few years, but then got shy. It continued to grow, however. I think I’ve had it for about ten years now. I repotted it into a much larger basket about four years ago and it has continued to grow, but still was shy blooming. I got to the point of listing it for sale, I was so frustrated with it. And then, of course, it bloomed beautifully. And it has continued to do so for several years in a row now.
Here is how the plant looks today:
It is over two feet across and has hundreds of pseudobulbs.
Here is it in bloom–photos from last year and the year before:
Care for this plant is still rather hit-or-miss for me. I keep it in the greenhouse all year. It takes a lot of water to keep the pseudobulbs plump in warm weather. I’m lazy about fertilizing it. I just put handfuls of balanced organized fertilizer into the pot once in the spring and again in the summer.
The most important lesson I’ve learned with this plant is to keep water away from the flowers. They open a pristine, bright white color. Water causes black/brown spots and also causes them to deteriorate much faster than flowers that have been kept dry.
Next plans for this plant are to cut off a few back bulbs and pot them separately to see if they will root and grow. This doesn’t seem to be a common orchid around here, so it could be popular at plant sales.
I’m posting my plants-a-day ahead so that I don’t get behind! The day two plant is a Cyclamen coum seedling from seeds started in 2018. I wasn’t hopeful that these seeds would germinate at all, and I just put the pot in the greenhouse and ignored it. Then, one day, there was a leaf! That was last January. This year, the plant (which might be more than one plant) looks pretty amazing.
Because of my success with these seeds, I ordered some more cyclamen seeds from the Bulb Society bulb/seed exchange and I received the seeds of Cyclamen graecum, which I will treat the same way and hope for similar results.
Cyclamen do well in the garden here in Seattle, but I may have a tough time letting them loose in the garden. They seem so precious and delicate. Maybe if I end up with a dozen of them some of them will find there way outside.
The new year and new decade start today! I decided that I would highlight a new plant every day in 2020, and then going forward, I can revisit the same plants and compare them year-over-year.
The first plant I will highlight is a Clivia miniata cultivar–a seedling from a cross called “Quail x Nakamura.” It gets day-one status because it has the audacity to be blooming on New Year’s Day!
Here are some photos of the flower and the plant from this year.
I’ll have to estimate the history of this plant, as I haven’t kept notes on it and my eBay history only goes back so far. I think I bought the seeds about eight years ago. I have several seedlings from this same cross from purchases made from an eBay seller, but the others have yet to bloom. The first flowers appeared two years ago on this plant. It did not bloom in 2019.
Here are some photos of the plant in flower in 2018:
Notes on this plant:
Waiting six years for a seedling to bloom is all worthwhile when the seedling has wonderful, different, interesting flowers like this clone. So many of my clivia seedlings have flowers that aren’t that different from the Clivia miniata type plants–it has been very disappointing.
This plant has about 13 leaves currently. I repotted it after it bloomed in 2018, which is likely why it didn’t bloom in 2019. It has not produced any offsets.
I plan to keep it potbound and am hopeful that will cause it to send up some offsets. It is in a two-gallon pot currently.
The flowers are much more subtly colored this year, possibly due to the lower light from it being winter! The scape has close to 20 flowers this year.
For Clivia care, I’ve found that planting them in 1/2 potting soil and 1/2 fine-to-medium orchid bark is a great mixture. They seem to grow best in medium, indirect light. I put organic food on top of the pot once in spring and again in summer. All of the adult plants are put out under the Douglas fir tree starting in April or May. I clean the pots up when I move them out and shred any dead leaves or flower stems onto the top of the potting soil. Repotting takes place at this time, too. Ideally, the Clivias all end up in two- or three-gallon pots.
The Clivias are watered regularly throughout the spring/summer/fall. I start watching temperatures in October. They can take temps down to frost, but I usually pull them into the greenhouse when I see the high 30s. I don’t water these plants once they are moved into the greenhouse until February or when I see flower spikes.
My Clivia dream is to have about 50 blooming plants lighting up the early spring greenhouse, with dozens of different cultivars in various colors and shapes. I have enough plants to make this dream come true–but giving them the right amount of attention to get them all to bloom has eluded me thus far. Some of the seedlings are just getting to blooming age now, so maybe 2020 will be a good Clivia year.
