The Phytophile

I seem to have a group of photos that I took back in mid November.  Today, then, I will give you a post heavy in pictures and light in text (finally!).  These have grown a little since then, but I’ll be taking more pics soon, and I’ll post the interesting ones.

Sansevieria kirkii

My Sansevieria kirkii is finally putting out new growth after nearly a year of doing nothing.  It seems that the previous mix  that it was in contained far too much clay, so it was either bone dry or completely soggy.  I repotted it and found that this had killed all of the roots.  Now in a new mix of much lighter soil and in a transparent plastic container so that I can monitor moisture, it seems to be much happier.  Another pic of this soon, as it has put on some substantial growth since I took the above photo.

Chlorophytum comosum

My spider plant has long suffered through being root bound in a tiny pot.  I did this intentionally, because it kept the plant small.  I recently decided to pot it up a size, and it graciously rewarded me with a stolon.  The photo above shows the beginning of it emerging.  It then proceeded to flower down the length of the stolon/inflorescence with tiny white flowers open one at a time and lasting only one day.  The end of the stolon now has a plantlet developing.

Welwitschia mirabilis

My Welwitschia seedlings are growing up so quickly!  They have just celebrated their first birthday, as of this February.  I’ll do a longer post on their progress soon, including measurements and an overall picture.  This photo is just to show the curious growths that occur between the two leaves.  They look like a pair of aborted leaves.  These will expand and merge, eventually becoming woody and turning into the top of the stem, the “disc” between the leaves.

Bulbophyllum elasoglossum

I don’t have much to say about this picture.  This is a cute miniature Bulbophyllum, but it does tend to ramble and be unruly.  It should probably be mounted, but we’ll see how it does in a pot.  Wish me luck on keeping it wet enough!

Encyclia bractescens

Here is a pic of my remounted E. bractescens.  It wasn’t fairing too well, so I thought I might remount it and see what that does.  Turns out the moisture pad it was on was much too big and wasn’t drying out fast enough.  All of the roots inside the sphagnum had rotted out.  Now it has much less sphagnum and is drying out better, which encyclias really like between waterings.  The new growths are putting out roots, so it finally has a (tiny) root system to absorb moisture through.  I have found that, paradoxically, if you keep plants too wet (especially orchids), the roots will rot out and the plant won’t get enough water and begin to shrivel.  This is what happened with the Sansevieria kirkii, and more recently to my Phsychopsis Mendenhall, and perhaps even my Bulbophyllum frostii (actual diagnosis pending).  Very frustrating, but a learning experience none the less.

Okay, just a handful of photos for you folks.  New photos to arrive soon, as well as a longer post about my plant life in general (you can read “plant life” as a noun, or “plant” as an adjective describing my “life”, either way is acceptable).

Enjoy the photos, happy belated Valentine’s Day, and until next time, happy growing!

It’s finally time for a profile of one of my favorite plants of all time, Bulbophyllum grandiflorum.  Why do I like this plant so much? you might be asking.  Well, I don’t really have a good reason.  It’s not the most popular Bulbophyllum among growers, but it’s not exceptionally rare either.  A lot of people think it’s an ugly duckling, so to speak.  I kind of agree with this, yet it is still near and dear to my heart.  Here are some pictures of my plant:

Bulbophyllum grandiflorum

This is the best overall picture I have of it.  You can clearly the flower spike in the center of the picture (next to the previous spike, now brown).  This is an older picture, so it has since flowered and faded.  Hiding on the left are two new growths (only one of which you can really see).  The three oldest pseudobulbs predate the plant’s move to this mount.  You can tell because the two old leaves point down, while the new ones are properly oriented.

The pseudobulbs are 1 to 2 inches tall, the leaves are about 5 or 6 inches, with about 1 inch spacing between pseudobulbs.  The roots tend not to grow very long and are very thin and wiry compared to a genus like Phalaenopsis.  And now for a picture of the flower:

side view

Observant readers will recognize this as the same flower as in the header at the top of the blog.  This plant is indeed a division of that one (from the Vanderbilt greenhouse).  The flower is a little difficult to photograph because it is so three-dimensional.  You can see the hood-like upper sepal on the top and the two twisting, leg-like bottom sepals coming forward.  The two side petals are greatly reduced, becoming little more than bumps next to the column.  The lip is also pretty small and hinged so that it will bob up and down in a breeze.

front view

Here’s a front view giving you a peek at the lip in the center.  You can see how the flower is borne well above the plant (or, rather, further out in this case).  I really like the twisting lower sepals.  Now for a closeup!

the complicated bits

So, here’s the teeny, tiny column, the slightly larger lip hanging over it, and right where the sepals meet is an itsy-bitsy green petal.  Clearly not the impressive part of the plant.  The white blotches on the hood are called “windows” and allow some light through.  Theoretically this tricks insects into thinking that they can fly that direction, which of course they can’t.  Somehow in their bumbling to get out of the flower it gets pollinated.

One of my favorite things about this plant is the smell.  Some people describe it as “foul,” which is an epithet often applicable to Bulbophyllum.  In this particular case, however, I disagree.  Perhaps it is just my particular plant, but I think it smells exactly like pepper.  Yes, the pepper that lives next to the salt on your kitchen table.  The flower is fragrant both day and night.  The interesting thing is that the plant itself smells faintly like pepper even when it’s not in flower.  The smell is most pronounced right after watering.  This is fairly atypical for orchids, and endears this plant to me all the more.

Now, for how I grow it.  Like a lot of Bulbophyllums this species doesn’t really have a rest period, but grows and flowers year-long.  It likes to be fairly wet and have high humidity.  I break one of the cardinal rules of orchid growing with this plant.  I keep it inside a large ziplock bag.  Yes ladies and gentlemen, my plant gets almost no air movement.  This probably isn’t great for it, but it’s really the only way I can keep its feet wet enough and the air humid enough.  It flowered, so I guess it doesn’t mind all that much.

B. grandiflorum is native to Sumatra and New Guinea, so it’s pretty much a warm grower.  Mine is probably nearer to intermediate, but I try to keep it was warm as possible.  As for light, it doesn’t need a lot, but I’ve found it can tolerate intermediate levels.  I keep it about 6 inches from a compact fluorescent bulb.  Although I mist it maybe twice a week, I give it a really good watering once a week, along with the rest of my orchids.  This is when I fertilize, too.  I just use standard Miracle-Gro diluted to about 10 or 20%.  Yes, I follow the axiom that one should fertilize orchids “weakly weekly.”

Let’s see, what else?  I think that might be it.  Hopefully I’m not forgetting anything.  Is anyone else growing this?  How do you do it?  Well, I hope this was interesting and informative.

Never let anyone tell you what smells good and what doesn’t.  Oh, and Happy Growing!