ORCHIDS!

Sunday Marty and I went to the Orchid Show in San Francisco.  This is the biggest orchid show in the USA.  We go every year saying we won't buy any this time.  Now that we are in an apartment with little outdoor space we really meant it.  Well until we walked through the sales floor.

I have eliminated 80+ pictures and have less than 20 to share.  That was the hard part of this post.  So much beauty, how do I tell an orchid I don't love it enough to show you all?

 

 

The theme of the show.  Very few exhibits did much with the theme.  Other years have had very lavish exhibits.

 

 

This one understood the theme.

 

 

Besides the trumpet, they had a flute and a sax.  No one played any jazz at their exhibit.

 

 

Posted because it is really pretty.

 

 

Loved this three large petal white bloom. 

 

 

We wanted to buy a pink plant like this one.  They were rarer than white ones and were sold out.  So we bought a white one.  Again we liked the unusual three petals.  These are pointier than the picture before this.

 

 

The design on the orchid on the left is unreal.  Mother Nature has such a genius for design.

 

 

This a the exhibit from Taiwan.  As I took the panoramic picture someone evidently moved.  So ignore the error.  This is all I have.  The beauty is worth overlooking the error.

 

 

Beauty sometime comes in very small packages.

 

 

Cattleyas are called the queen of orchids.  This is the flower we all wanted in a corsage for Easter, for the Christmas dance, for the Senior prom.    

 

 

Marty held a ball point pen against a bloom to show how small it was.  I was blown away with how dark the color was.

 

 

The colors of these plants were in your face.  Yellows, reds, oranges, and then the white with purple dancing between them. 

 

 

I loved this.  I wanted it.

 

And I want these, they were twice as big as the picture before.

 

 

Can you tell how much I like these?  Unfortunately they are fairly scarce and few vendors had any for sale.  They had sold all of the few they had.  Maybe next year.

 

 

Marty on the lookout for the curly orchids.  We did find some other types to bring home.

 

 

The orchids we bought. 

 

Many plants were bare rooted, so not as expensive. Others were from Hawaii and Taiwan and they were cut in price.  The vendors did not want to have to pay for shipping them back home.  Prices on the last day at certain vendors are half price or buy three get one free.  All of these have bloom spikes or buds coming.  Some are miniature plants and the rest will remain fairly small.  Even in an apartment you can have exotic plants.

 

 

 

 



 

 



 

 



We do love our orchids.

Marty and I discovered orchid plants in the early 1970’s.  Depending on where we have lived and whether there was water rationing. we continued to have orchids.  When we sold the house with our greenhouse in 2012, we were afraid that was the end of growing orchids.  What apartment would be bright enough or have outdoor space for when the orchids weren’t blooming?  We sold and gave away some of the orchids.  Friends took our cymbidiums, just to babysit them they said. 

We thought we would never have room for the cymbidiums, they are huge plants.  Richard and Luis had us bring our other orchids and when we left there to apartment hunt, they tended to them.   Well, now we have windows 8 feet tall.  We have a back porch and lots of steps.  We have collected our orchids and are enjoying them muchly!  Our friends are great babysitters of orchids.  I have pictures to show you the glory of blooming orchids all through our home.

Be sure to click on the pictures to see the detail.  Orchids come in all sizes and colors.  Some have wonderful aromas.  Some just look pretty and have no aroma.  And pretty they are.

    

We have the tiny white bloom.   In contrast, here is this yellow and red lovely cymbidium bloom, much bigger, almost saucer size.  The bloom spikes on this one are three feet tall.

Another cymbidium blooming its heart out.  Who knew brown could be so rich?

                                                                              

This is sitting on the freezer.  The buds are just starting to swell.

  

Here we have a cymbidium. pinkish white with touches of purples.  The next picture is an Iwanagaara (Apple Blossom) which is a cross of a cattleya.  Another white and purple but very different.  Notice that the Iwanagaara’s two bloom spikes have different colored flowers.  Yet it is the same plant.  Weird.  This smells incredible.

                                                                              

As I said, they come in all colors, Halloween Orange.

Pure white with just  a touch of purple.  You have to look inside the bloom to see the purple.

                                                                       

This is on Marty’s desk.  It is white with a touch of purple and a yellow throat.

  

The ones setting buds, or bloomed out will live here on the back porch.  It is covered and has windows all around it. There is room for plants to sit on the back steps too.  Marty is a happy boy.  He doesn’t have a green house any more, but our make do is going to work.  He can continue to garden.  Maybe some time I will write about his herb garden.

East Meets West, Orchid Show 2013

This year the Orchid Show was the weekend of the Chinese New Year.  All through the show were displays highlighting the New Year.

It is almost overwhelming when you walk into the show.  There are thousands of orchids: some beautiful, some weird, some a little of both. There are orchid blooms as tiny as a gnat’s behind, and orchid blooms as big as a soup bowl.  We walk around taking picture after picture.  The plants are brought from all over the world.  Other plants types are there also, and they are strange and beautiful too.  A few orchids are fragrant but most aren’t.  That is a good thing, if they all were fragrant one would be nauseated from the varied aromas.  I took over 100 pictures and want to use them all.  I won’t.  I picked some favorites to share with you.  Enjoy.

Be sure to click on the pictures to see the details.

This is me taking a picture of me and some winning orchids.

This orchid is strange and beautiful.  Strange shape and strange color.  Who would think a brownish floppy flower could look so great.

Marty showing you the tiny blooms.  Orchids on a stick.

                                  

Several exhibit tables.

Just because they are pretty and are shaped differently from many orchids.

Lady slippers.  The one type which Marty has had no success. 

Look at this.  The blooms are tiny and are almost on the ground.  In a field you might miss them.  You would just be seeing the “grassy” leaves.

                 

Yes, these are orchids.  Weird and strange shaped. 

                                                                             

This is my favorite ever exhibit.  A fire breathing surfing dragon with pruning shears.

Another fun exhibit.

More sophisticated exhibits.

This table is just outstanding.

                                             

This plants has really tiny blooms.  Each yellow stalk has dozens of blooms. 

Orchids on and in a Metropolitan from the 1950’s. 

                                                   

I take this shot every year.  This is the sales area of the show.  Orchids and everything you need to grow them in one compact space.

The Orchid Show every year is fun, educational, and costly.  It cost a lot to get in, to eat a sandwich here, to park, and of course to buy 1 or 2 beauties to take home.

 

GARDENING

Let me say up front I hate gardening. I don't like to get my hands dirty, I don't like to sweat, I don't like to pick off snails, I hurt when I bend over for long periods of time. I do like the flowers, herbs, and veggies we get from gardening. That was the royal we. The only gardening I do is to dead head roses every now and then and to try to pull out the fern overtaking the gardenia. But then there is Marty.

I told a friend once that when Marty died I am sure he will come back as an earth worm. The man loves to dig in the dirt. He loves to garden, to dig, fertilize, prune, play with the irrigation system, to start seeds. He loves everything about growing plants and he is so good at it.

We don't have lots of sun in our yard. Lots of trees in surrounding yards create too much shade. But we do have little pools of sunlight and Marty has planted those areas within an inch of their lives. We have tomatoes, radishes, peppers, chard, carrots, basil, cilantro, chives, artichokes, thyme, sage, and on and on. And we have the greenhouse. Oh how he loves that greenhouse. He starts plants from seed in the winter and he has orchids. Lots and lots of orchids. We have cattleyas, dendrobiums, cymbidums, phalaenopsis, and some I don't know what species they are. Our house is full of blooming orchids.

All are beautiful, and some also have a wonderful aroma. Orchids have many different aromas: we have some that smell like chocolate, pepper, or are sweet smelling. They also produce a nectar like substance that taste good. It will drip off the plants. They are wonderful plants that are forgiving. They will live a long time while you learn how to grow them.

Marty spent most of today watering, pruning, fertilizing, re-potting, and just taking care of his orchids. Every plant came out of the greenhouse and was checked and taken care of. He was a happy happy camper. I was very helpful and served him beer. This was his idea of a perfect Sunday afternoon. I had my perfect afternoon in the recliner reading a mystery.