Anyone else on this forum interested in orchids? I've always been interested in them - (especially when they came in a corsage!)- but then I discovered that they grow outside in this climate and I started collecting the native varieties. Right now they are all in full bloom. I especially like the tiny ones - some just as big as my little fingernail. These small ones are delicately perfumed too. The ones I have blooming now are tiny white and mauve varieties, a slightly larger cream one, and a bigger mauve one. I DO know the botanical names too - but will only bother you with those if someone else is an orchid enthuisiast.
Please Daryl, if I send you a jpg of the mauve one in bloom will you post it?

You send it and I will post it.

Thanks Daryl. This is great! My first pic posted in this forum!
For the specifics. I am told this is Dendrobium Nobile. This is my biggest plant of this variety - the others have grown from bits I have taken off this one. I even have them growing where the branches come off the main trunk of the frangipani trees.

I am very much looking forward to seeing your orchids. Hope it shows up soon.

Intresting when coming on without logging in it did not show up. After logging in there it is in it's beauty. I guess it pays to be a member & log in.

[ September 20, 2002, 05:18 PM: Message edited by: Edward F Sutton ]

Ed, I don;t know what you are looking at.

I just now loaded it and you can see it below mikk's name as well as in the forum itself.

I worked for years in plant nurseries in Florida USA. In a large commercial hydroculture nursery, they had a thousand orchids. It was important for us workers to go through the beds and make sure every plant had the leaves facing east and west. As you know, they have two main leaves that lay flat on the pot, laying in opposite directions.

[ September 21, 2002, 10:21 PM: Message edited by: Restin ]

Here we go folks

http://users.senet.com.au/~valleyor/index.html

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Cymbidium+Orchids%22&hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&oe=ISO-8859-1&start=0&sa=N

Some orchids are even fragrant, but if not plant Jasmine nearby.

[ September 22, 2002, 04:40 AM: Message edited by: Edward F Sutton ]

I don't know much about growing specialist orchids - mine just grow anyhow in the garden.
However, the species that I grow are dendrobium - not cymbidium - and I think the cymbidiums are harder to grow.
Here's a link to a pic of the tiny mauve one dendrobium kingianum http://www.mendelu.cz/arboretum/orchids/Dendrobium/Dendrobium_kingianum.html - This site - http://www.anos.org.au/ne_nsw_species/4230040.htm - says this same species is pink in colour, but mine is definitely mauve. The pic on this site has a coin next to the flower to show the size. My introduction to this orchid was on a forest site where I had about 60-80 bee hives making some great honey in the early spring. I looked over the southerly facing steep slope one day after finishing work with the bees and was astonished to see great drifts of mauve - must have been a couple of acres in size - growing in very thin soil on top of great bush rocks. Each rock dropping steeply down onto the next one 6-10 feet lower and each with its 'topping' of orchids. Beautiful! I later took my elderly neighbours up to see the site - the man was a longtime orchid fancier. He already had kingianum as part of his collection. He also gave me some of his plants - dendrobium delicatum - http://www.orchidehuset.se/galleri%20de/Dendrobium%20delicatum.htm - and dendrobium speciosum - more commonly know as the Sydney rock orchid http://www.plantfacts.com/Family/Orchidaceae/Dendrobium.speciosum.shtml

Yup,

You are right cymbidiums are harder to grow in that they are fussy about their bloom conditions. They tolerate a very wide temprature range - from almost freezing to sweltering heat, dry to intermittant wet. Near freezing helps them decide to bloom. Room temprature shuts that down.

You're right they catch our interest when they are in corsages. My daughter got married the end of July and she got orchids for us mothers. It was pretty large and a chartreuse (yellow-green) color with redish stamens.

I see orchids for sale in Canada now since last year. Some look like climbers. They're very special.