Encyclia plicata in bloom

This time last year I purchased my Encyclia plicata from Ruben in Orchids on my Florida trip.  At that time, it had just a couple of flowers left on its bloom spike.

Encyclia plicata flowers

True to schedule, my Encyclia plicata has been blooming for the past several weeks and this time I have gotten to enjoy the wonderful fragrance of these blooms.  I don't really buy orchids for their fragrance, but this one would be worth it.  This just might be my favorite color combination of any of the orchids I own.  All things considered, this is pretty much a perfect orchid in my book.

Dockrillia wassellii in bloom

It is always exciting to see a plant bloom for the first time. I have seen pictures of Dockrillia wassellii blooms, but this is the first time that my plant has put out a bloom spike.

Dockrillia wassellii

The flowers are quite small, but they have really beautiful intricate details.

Dockrillia wassellii blooms

I purchased my plant at the beginning of the year, mounted on cork bark. It hasn't really grown since I got it, but it hasn't lost any of its leaves and has seemed happy. The blooms are good confirmation of that.  When it has finished blooming I will move the plant from its current location onto the mounted orchid rack.

A place for mounted orchids

I am always trying to figure out better ways of arranging my plants, especially as fall approaches and I know that all of the plants scattered around my yard are going to have to go back into the greenhouse soon.  When I set up the shelves in my greenhouse, I had more shelves per unit than I wanted to use.  I put two of the shelves to use by making separate bases for them and giving myself a low bench in one of the corners of my greenhouse.  The other shelf I sat aside for future inspiration.

Some of my mounted orchids hanging off of a pot

Well, inspiration came recently!  I have been hanging my mounted orchids in various places in the greenhouse, some from the fronts of the shelves, others from hanging pots or other mounted orchids... I decided that my little collection of mounted orchids would be better cared for if they were consolidated in one location, and it would also eliminate some of the accessibility problems I was having when I would hang them on the front of a shelf and not be able to reach back to other plants.

My new rack with most of the mounted orchids in place

So I mounted that shelf piece vertically between studs and... Voila!  Now I have a hanging rack for my collection of mounted orchids, which numbers about 15 right now.  I have a couple more orchids that need to be mounted.  As soon as I can find some suitable mounting material and some time, there will be more orchids added to the rack.

The spoils of a jolly gardener

After months of drought and extremely hot weather, we finally got some rain at the end of August.  The relief was immediate with grass turning green and plants starting to bloom.  Plants that we had spent the last couple of months watering by hand on a daily basis acted like they hadn't gotten a drop of water until it rained.  Then they started blooming.

The jolly gardener is so proud of her flowers

Pippa has taken to standing in one location in front of an array of colors (Datura and Plumbago), posing with a big grin on her face.  We think she is trying to take credit for all of the flowers we're finally seeing.

Datura meteloides, I think.

Our neighbor's yard is a jungle, especially near the fence line. But one of the gems of the jungle is a Rose of Sharon (aka Althea or Hibiscus syriacus) with purple blooms. It hangs over the fence into our yard right by our corner garden and we are very grateful. Not only do we get to enjoy the flowers most of the summer, but we also get volunteer seedlings coming up all the time.

Rose of Sharon that hangs over our fence

I have allowed some of the seedlings to grow until they are big enough to be transplanted to locations where we want them. The largest of those transplanted Rose of Sharon is now about 3 feet tall and bloomed for the first time this summer. We were hoping for purple flowers, but we have pure white.

First bloom of the seedling Rose of Sharon

On a recent trip to Lowe's we took a quick trip through the depleted garden center and found some incredible deals on rose bushes. We purchased four roses for about $10 and some of those are now blooming.

One of our new roses

At the advice of the Lowe's cashier, we did not plant the roses immediately. We'll wait until the temperatures are a little less extreme.  Until then, we'll just enjoy them in their pots.

Another of our new roses

A tale of two cuttings

My friend Leland has sent me many wonderful plants over the last couple of years.  In April I received some very large cuttings of Philodendron warscewiczii.  The cuttings were about 12-15 inches long and 2-3 inches in diameter.  Seriously, they were like logs.  I wasn't sure what the best method would be for getting new growth from the cuttings, so I tried putting one cutting in a vase of water and the other directly into a chunky, loose mix of soil, bark, and charcoal and kept it pretty well watered.

Cuttings started in water (left) and soil (right), back in early June.

The cutting which was started in water was the first one out of the gate, sprouting leaves and roots from two growth points.  After a couple of weeks of growth in water, I decided to go ahead and plant this cutting in soil as well.  The cutting that was started in soil did not show any progress for several more weeks.  Finally I noticed a root emerging from one of the drainage holes at the bottom of the pot (see image above).  At this point there were still not any leaves.  A month or two down the road and my potted cutting began to sprout a new leaf from the tip.  When the leaf finally unfurled I noticed this leaf was a mature warscewiczii leaf, while the leaves on my other cuttings were the juvenile form, with less divisions in the leaf.  It seemed counter-intuitive, at first, that this cutting which had just produced it's first leaf had a more mature leaf than my cutting which had two growth points with several leaves already.

Mature leaf of tip cutting started in soil

Juvenile leaves of center cutting started in water

The more I thought about this, I realized that my "late bloomer" cutting had a key difference that was most likely the reason for this difference.  This cutting was a tip cutting and the leaf was emerging from the end, where new leaves were developing prior to the plant being dissected and sent across the ocean to me.  The cutting which sprouted the two new growths and lots of leaves was, in a sense, starting from scratch, while this other cutting was continuing growth that had been going on for many years.

Tip cutting started in soil (left). Center cutting started in water (right).

Now my slower cutting is about to unfurl a fourth leaf and my fast cutting has unfurled something like its 12th.  Both are pretty plants, but the tip cutting has produced beautiful mature leaves that are much more appealing and more warscewiczii-ish than the many leaves of the other cutting.