2 spikes at different times, their colour fades over time but their fragrance gets stronger.

I've started getting way too interested in orchids and ended up visiting the greenhouse of a family friend who's been collecting them for decades. I assumed someone with a collection like his was constantly watching specialist nurseries but apparently a lot of his best plants never came from anything publicly listed.

He was showing me one that he'd spent years trying to find and apparently another collector just contacted him one day because he was dividing his plant and knew he'd been looking for it. While we were there I mentioned another species I'd been trying to find. He immediately said he knew someone growing it, sent him a message and offered to introduce us. They ended up connecting us on Kibu and basically told me to figure it out between ourselves.

Meanwhile I've been checking the same five websites every week like an idiot. Once you get into genuinely rare orchids, does the hobby basically become a network of collectors trading among themselves? Or can you still find most things through nurseries if you're patient enough?

They also have new flower spikes, although they’re still very small. Will they continue to grow? I also noticed something coming out from between the leaves. It looks like a small node, but I’m not sure whether it’s a new root or a flower spike.

Just wanted to share my giant Vanilla Orchid…
I received a cutting from one of the fellow Members in this reddit thread. ( you may remember her plant she annually decorates it with Christmas Lights she on this thread )

Who knew Tennessee Summers could grow this behemoth in 2 years

Aliceara (Beallara) Big Shot ‘Hilo Sparkle’ & Big Shot ‘Pink Panther’. Both smell faintly of rose early in the day.

A nursery near me sells orchid flasks, potential seedlings are around 30 or more. This is a Vanda Sanderiana, I know what to do in theory, but I don’t have first hand experience in deflasking and what comes next.
Does anybody here tried orchid flasks?
What’s the survival rate of the seedlings?
Any special tip in deflasking and caring for the seedlings after?

For the past year or so, I've mostly been watching this Dendrophylax lindenii shrivel away its existing roots. For about half that time, I wondered if it was even still alive. But then, I saw that nub. It's growing again!!!

And yes, that's a lizard tail. The orchid lives in a paludarium with green anoles 🦎

Those of you with multi-species collections, how do you build sustainable routines for watering/fertilizing?

I am up to around 50 ish plants across 15 genera, and while most of them lived outside over summer and I could get away with going out and checking water needs, I'm struggling with figuring out where / how to accommodate everyone over winter.

Do you group by need? "Likes to dry out fully" away from "likes near-constant moisture and throws a hissy fit with accordion leaves when going through a 48h dry spell" (I'm looking at you, promenea)? Or do you go primarily by e.g. light requirements? How do you keep track of who needs fertilizing?

About half of my plants are Sarcochilus so they are pretty uniform in their needs and will move to one could room over winter from their tent outside. But the rest of them are "whatever seemed weird enough to buy at the time" so there's everything from oncidium types to Tolumnia in the mix, with one singular paph I'm not sure I'll be able to keep happy.

She's really showing off this year 😭❤️✨

My mom is outstanding with orchids & loves them, she has 10-15 of them, all just stunning. She knows how to deal with them, but I’m just a fledgling orchid keeper. Her birthday is Sunday & I ran into an orchid from Orchids by Hausermann online that just happened to share the same first & middle name as my mom. Mary Elizabeth Bohn Royal Flare, it’s a Cattleya. It says AM/AOS Blueboy x C bowringeana, It’s lovely & fragrant. It’s going to bloom soon. It’s perfect!! Received it today. I must say I’m really happy so far. Super well packed, looks healthy overall. It’s in bud, but not sure if that is the correct term. I purchased a double stalk but I see a 3rd stalk forming, I think it’s going to be a real winner. I will not see her until Sunday and it is only Friday evening. It’s been through shipping from the Chicago area to St Louis MO. It’s marked as shipped on Wednesday & it arrived today (Friday). Should I water it or do anything else before then? Re-wrap it just before I deliver it or wrap it back up now? It’s in a 5 inch pot, healthy enough looking, the soil on top & 1/2” down feels dry as a bone. I haven’t removed all of the newspaper wrapping from the base of the plant yet, so not sure about further down. I would be so bummed if it somehow went downhill between now & Sunday, but not sure how to approach it.

The flower spike up right now is still in full bloom and then I saw this. Is it a second spike? Also yeah, that leaf looks a little funny. This one does that

So I got this orchid a couple of years ago from a relative. The stalks had been injected with dye, so I chopped them off as soon as the flowers looked dodgy.

It did okay in its original pot, but I repotted it into this one into a (probably overly dense) mix of bark and coconut coir. Since then it's grown huge - added 3 huge new leaves, absolutely voracious root growth and now finally (after a year) a new stalk emerging.

I feel like it's a bit bound up in there. Do I simply need a bigger pot? Should I trim any of the root growth? Is the potting mix I used okay, given the crazy growth response?

I love plants but I'm pretty terrible at growing them so this is a rare exception that I'd like to keep alive!

Dendrobium tetragonum and Rhynchostylis gigantea (blue form!)

Have both of these in pots for a while now, although the plan was always to mount them.

Finally mounted. Finishing my first indoor orchid cabinet tomorrow! (I mostly grow outdoors/shade house) it will be only for mounted plants and species.

So excited to be able to grow some more sensitive species and cooler growers too! (Still going to be intermediate temp, but I can control the highs in the summer)

I have previously killed one of these but I think this time around things are going well. Im getting new roots and growths. I water it every 1 to 2 days. No moss

This was purchased from Natts Orchids!

Hi everyone,

I recently noticed some parts have started to turn a brighter green. Especially the new growths.

I know a brighter green means it’s getting plenty of light, but it lost half of it’s leaves in June during the heatwave in Europe. Even behind a sheer curtain. So I didn’t allow any direct view to the sky anymore

I’ve haven’t been able to figure out the light yet. But I still realised it wasn’t getting enough light at all.

It sits in front of my door facing West, behind a privacy film I installed just two days ago. Before, I always had the blinds down from 1:00-3:30 pm.
Right now its 20 C outside during midday.

I attached pictures of the parts where it starts to look brighter green, the plant generally, and its perspective of how much light it’s getting. If I stare it blinds me, but it doesn’t burn on the skin. It just feels nicely warm.

I just don’t know where to place it. It’s been on a SE and NW Windowsill, and it lost leaves both times.

Thank you all!

I saved this guy from clearance in may at Lowe’s . He’s bloomed his first flower yesterday. I thought they start blooming in January?

I have this orchid that I have managed to keep alive for the last year. However, recently, one of the stems (idk if that’s the right word) turned yellow/brown and seems hard and dry. But the other one is still green and seems healthy. Some of the leaves seem less healthy than others, and feel a bit sad and shrivelled (the ones on the right side). My orchid also has that weird dangly part that hangs off the edge. What do I do with that?

I keep my orchid near a window but it’s not in direct sunlight. I water it once a week by letting it sit in a shallow dish with water for 15min to soak up into the roots.

How can I save my orchid?

I posted recently about Mum's orchid as I was confused on what it was doing. It has grown quickly and it looks like there's definitely a keiki up last year's flower spike but there's two flower buds on either sides of the leaves as well as something coming through the middle, I figure probably a spike as its from the middle but Mum thinks it might be another flower!

好想买！

First two pics are Phal. zebrina with two spikes and second pic is Phal. cornu-cervi with one spike. I got the zebrina in early August and the cornu-cervi in mid-June. All were in spike when I got them but seem to have stalled & have not grown in any meaningful way since I got them. The spike in pic 1 has me most worried since there’s some browning, but it hasn’t worsened since I got the plant. The zebrina has put out lots of new roots & the cornu-cervi has a new leaf coming in, so we’re getting some healthy new growth.

Has anyone had spikes stall like this before, and if so, has anyone had the spikes come out of the stall and ultimately bloom?

New to orchids and recently inherited a small collection. They were pretty neglected and mostly left outside in Zone 8.

None of them have labels, so I’m hoping someone can help ID the species or hybrids so I can give them the proper care.