Pretty pictures: Vandachostylis Lilac Blossom

Another new orchid genus. Or, well, a new nothogenus, anyway. Interesting?

Vandachostylis Lilac Blossom = Rhynchostylis coelestis x Vanda ampullacea (Ref.)

Pretty picture: Phalaenopsis (Sogo Yukidian x Brother Oxford)

This is okay, I guess. I think I like the yellow / white combination better than I would have liked pure yellow. And it's definitely more appealing than pure white would have been.

In personal(-ish) news:

The reader will no doubt be pleased to learn that I believe my ongoing itching problem, which has been annoying and frustrating me for much of the last year, appears to have been resolved, and was only dry skin all along. I mean, it still doesn't make any sense to me really, but the fact remains that doing stuff intended to fix dry skin has made the itching go away, so it's hard to argue that dry skin wasn't the problem. So yay. I guess. Why and how my skin got dry in the first place remains unexplained.

The Anthuriums appear to be on strike at the moment. I don't know what they're angry about (my suspicion is that they want to be moved up to 6-inch pots, which I don't have room for), but there are only three plants (out of literally hundreds) in the basement producing new blooms right now. One is 'Joli,' for the first time since I bought it in March, so there may be some new purple genes entering the seedlings in a year or so. The second is #095 "Clarice Fullhartz," who is still bravely trying to build a flower even though her roots are like 90% gone and she keeps getting pulled out of the pot. I'm not sure the bud is actually getting any larger, but she's at least not given up, which I suppose is the best we can hope for given the circumstances. The third is #040 "Ivy Winters," who has started and aborted so many blooms that I'm not really expecting anything to happen with the current buds, but it's gotten further than the other ones ever did, so that's something.

I have at least not spotted any new thrips damage, thrips, or scale since before the last round of oiling. It would be foolish to expect that this means they're all gone, but I nevertheless hope that maybe, something has finally worked.

Pretty pictures: Cattleya Crystelle Smith 'Hampshire'

Howdy. I'm still alive, and apparently so are you, so . . . things could be worse.

These photos are not as different from one another as I must have been thinking when I uploaded them, but the color combination is great. Sometimes less is more.

Cattleya Crystelle Smith 'Hampshire' = Cattleya Beaufort x Cattleya loddigesii (Ref.)

Pretty picture: Masdevallia Annette Hall

We were without internet access for like twenty-five hours on Wednesday / Thursday and it was exactly like that one episode of Little House on the Prairie where they lose their internet access and Pa Ingalls has to take the horses out into the blizzard to chop it free or whatever, except that the snow is so deep and the internet is so heavy that when he loads it all on the horse to take back to the cabin, the horse can't move, so Pa builds a barn around the horse and the two of them just stay outside like that until the snow all melts in the spring and Laura and all the lesser Ingallses missed everything that happened on Facebook for, like, the whole winter.

This plant didn't, like, blow me away at the show or anything, but the photo turned out nicely. I'm this close to being more depressed that I can't grow Masdevallias than I am about not being able to grow Paphiopedilums.

Masdevallia Annette Hall = Masdevallia Copper Angel x Masdevallia Manco Inca (Ref.)

Pretty pictures: Lycaste Alan Salzman

This genus is new to PATSP, though there will be a different Lycaste post in January. Not sure how I feel about this exactly. It's not actually peloric, but it looked enough like a peloric flower on first glance that I was confused for a while. I suppose the color is pleasant, and the flower is at least big, so it's got that going for it.

Lycaste Alan Salzman = Lycaste Island of Vulcorn x Lycaste Shoalhaven (Ref.)

Anthurium seedlings update:

Not a lot going on lately with the Anthuriums; a lot of the previously-pollinated flowers have produced ripe berries now, so I've sown seeds from:

#005 "Chad Michaels"
#059 "Bijoux Tuit"
#108 "Deena Sequins"
#200 "Mario Speedwagon"
#234 "Ross Koz"
#239 "Russ Teanale"
#271 "Wanda Reulthemal"
#273 "Wes Coast"
#276 "Zach Religious"

and I have potted up seedlings from all but three of those; still waiting to pot something up from 059 (Bijoux), 108 (Deena), and 200 (Mario).

And by the time you read this, I will probably have sown seeds from #002 "Alexis Mateo" as well.

There have been a couple recent seedling deaths, but only among the newer / smaller 3" plants -- nobody you'd know.

No thrips sightings in quite a while, which is good news, though some of the reason for that may be because there aren't many active blooms at the moment. I haven't seen a first-time bloomer since late August (#171 "Genevieve la Difference"), and I think all of the buds that the Anthuriums have tried to produce lately have aborted without developing. The thrips seem to prefer the spathes to the leaves, so with fewer spathes to choose from than usual, and with everything being sticky from the oil / dishwashing liquid mixture I sprayed everywhere, the thrips have been having a tough time.

Also started lots of new seeds from the NOID purple (41 seeds), NOID pink (31), and 'White Gemini' (51) lately, moved a lot of seedlings to 3" pots, and have a first new bud on 'Joli' now (which may still drop, but it's developed further than most, so I may be able to work in some 'Joli' genes after all).

'Midori' has definitely been pollinated, and I count 14 developing berries right now. If 'Midori' is typical, then Anthurium math says I should get about 16 seeds and 10 seedlings from that pollination, of which maybe 1 will live long enough to produce an inflorescence. But I can try again with the next 'Midori' bloom, too.

I'm also trying to decide which of the seedlings to move up into 6" pots; a lot of the 4" plants are floppy and easily tangled in one another. Because they're all flopped together, most of them aren't getting enough light anymore, and they can't really sucker, so some of them are going to need more room, like, yesterday. The trouble is that very time I start trying to make a list of possible candidates for promotion to 6", I wind up with like 15 plants on the list, and there's no way I have room for 15 6-inch Anthuriums anywhere in the house, so I'm going to have to do a lot of rearranging, it looks like. And maybe some throwing-away and selling.

So, overall, things are more boring and less pretty than I expected, but the indications for the future are fairly positive: lots of new plants, it's possible if not likely that the thrips and scale are gone, and I may be able to start thinning the herd by selling some of them on Craigslist once they start blooming again.

Pretty picture: Guarianthe aurantiaca

I'm pretty sure I've gotten better pics of this in the past (in fact they are all better; 2011 is probably the best), but oh well, this one's still really orange, and that's the important part.

previously (as Cattleya): 2010, 2011, 2012

Pretty picture: Cattleya Crownfox Sweetheart 'Perfection'

Ennh.

previously (as Laeliocattleya): 2010

Cattleya Crownfox Sweetheart 'Perfection' = Cattleya walkeriana x Cattleya Memoria Robert Strait (Ref.)

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I have stopped oiling the Anthuriums again, not because it wasn't working (it might or might now have been), but because it seems to be upsetting the plants. They're dropping leaves, and new buds have all but stopped. Nothing serious, and it could even be normal (Anthuriums don't change a lot with the seasons, but they're still aware of the seasons), but, but it's enough to make me pause again. Haven't seen any thrips or scale in a while, at least.

I've also gotten involved in a new project, unrelated to plants, which means that posting will remain light for the foreseeable future.

Pretty picture: Robiquetia cerina

The flowers are still not the most interesting, but this is probably the best and most detailed photo I've managed to get so far. So that's something.

previously: 2012, 2013