Sunday, August 18, 2013

Pretty picture: Dendrobium Frosty Dawn 'Yen'

I've spent the last five days moving plants in at night and out in the morning -- we had a run of temperatures below 60F/16C. A lot of the plants that are outside will handle that fine (Agave, Strelitzia, Breynia, Amorphophallus), but a few won't so well (Coffea, Aloe, Synadenium, Araucaria), so they have to go back and forth. There are also some (Ananas, Furcraea, Euphorbia, Pachypodium) that might be fine, but I'm scared to leave them out for fear that they'll be damaged.

Moving plants is annoying, and exhausting, and then finding scale again this week is just the honeydew on the cake. I haven't even really gotten a chance to check the other plants for scale yet; I did look at the plants in the same room, and they seemed okay, but I added imidacloprid granules to some of them anyway because you can never be sure you checked everything.

I did also get to see scale through the microscope. It was harder than I expected to find them, and I didn't try to get any pictures because it was night and therefore way too dark. The nymphs are . . . not uncute, actually. Sort of plump like a tardigrade, but with bigger eyes.

That's a terrible description, but it's the best I can come up with. The adults, of course, are horrifying, just as you would expect.

Anyway. I'm thinking the next post'll be Tuesday, probably. In the meantime, here's a Dendrobium that I like. Every so often, the orchid show surprises me with something like this.


Dendrobium Frosty Dawn 'Yen' = Dendrobium Dawn Maree x Dendrobium Lime Frost


3 comments:

Ms. said...

What a beauty! I know that moving in and out routine. Not here in the city, just let them be...but, when I visit friends in Massachusetts...lots of in and out with the potted plants. Exhausting.

Anonymous said...

I don't think temp below 16C can do any damage to aloe. I keep most of my succulent plants outside until temp gets to ~5C (zone 6b). They are just fine (also aloe)

mr_subjunctive said...

Anonymous:

It's happened before, though. (I'm not sure, in that case, how cold they actually got, but since then, I don't take any chances with the Aloes, even if I know that they ought to be able to handle it.)