The Bulb. echinolabium has bloomed, a giant marionette of an orchid. I’ve waited almost five years for it to bloom. Starting as a seedling in a three-inch pot, it is now a large plant with five inflorescences. (Don’t know that all will successfully produce blooms. Just this one flower seems enough of a miracle.)
See the photo page for a look at the Bulb echinolabium and this week’s other new greenhouse blooms. [Bulb. echinolabium, L. purpurata and Enc. tampensis alba.]
The big project this weekend was completing (or nearly completing) the Wardian Case. I bought the case several years ago as vendors were breaking down exhibits at the KC Lawn and Garden Show. A Chicago vendor dramatically discounted its price because she didn’t want the hassle of packing it in her van for the trip north.
For three years the case served as home for a handful of small pleurothallis and a green frog. A stowaway from New Orleans, the frog happened to be on a reed-stem epidendrum that I bought from a Louisiana vendor one year at an orchid show in the Missouri Botanical Gardens.
After being empty for the last few years, the Wardian case is once again a functioning terrarium on legs. I’ve attached plants to three “growing towers” that I’ve constructed using tubes of hardware cloth stuffed with sphagnum moss. A pvc pipe, drilled with three or four tiny holes, runs through the center of each tower. [See the photo above, right.) I keep the moss moist by pouring water into the pipe. Each week I’ll siphon off the drained water from the plastic tray at the bottom of the case.
A sheet of plastic grid (see below, right) lies over the tray and is covered with the EcoWeb(tm) described in last week’s post. As a final layer, I’ve spread a layer of sheet moss over the web. (I’m still trying to find a better final layer.) Two computer fans keep the air circulating.
These are the plants attached to the towers: Paph. armeniacum, Mameba Nishiki, Pleu. cypripediodes, Bulb. curtisii ‘Pablei, [L. (Sl. Beaufort x L.briegeri) x S. cernua] and Pleur. ornata.
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