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The thread "Our Orchid blooms in May 2023🌸" in Orchids forum
We have June 1. and with that we start the new thread for the month. Around here things are a bit quiet now in the cage. A couple of Orchids are in the budding stage, but most are now adding growth over the Summer.
But, this Laelia purpurata v. vinicolor opened just in time to start the new thread. I took it inside for a picture or two.



And the Nageliella purpurea is a miniature Orchid, it always starts blooming this time of year on long, dangling, very wiggly spikes of old growths.




Please join in and post away!

Always love the graceful shape and colors of the Laelia purpurata. That one's a beauty, Ursula.

I'm finally home from my trip and everything seems to be alive and thriving in my garden. Have not encountered any new orchids blooming, but the Thunderstorm orchid is just over it's second flush of blooms for this spring, shedding dead flowers hither and yon. We must have had a bit of rain a few days ago, I guess.

Thanks Elaine!
It is nice to be home too, right?

Absolutely, no matter how wonderful the trip is, coming home is always the best part.

I did find some new blooms on one of my blue Cattleya but they're hardly worth a picture at the moment - some sort of brown rot has taken them out at the stem end. The plant doesn't look bad, but the blooms are all hanging down sadly.

Hauling out the Actinovate fungicide right away, but there are thunderstorms looming so I've got to wait until tomorrow morning to spray.

BigBill is posting this beauty -

This is Paph. Lady Rothschild. It is Lady Isobel x Paphiopedilum rothschildianum.

Bill, such a beautiful bloom! 💕

My sad little C. gaskelliana coeruleas with the rotted stems. Turns out the sheath didn't split properly, and was full of water! So the stems just rotted from sitting in water. I cut off the flowers, and the leaf and rest of the plant look ok.

Sprayed everybody with Actinovate, my favorite biological fungicide, which pretty much guarantees it's now going to (finally ! ) rain and wash it all off. Yep, thunder just boomed pretty nearby . . .

Turns out my quick glance on Wed. night at the Thunderstorm orchid was not spent flowers after all - a gazillion buds, on both the mother plant and it's little baby that I started last year from some cuttings. Burst into bloom last night, so here she is in her glory, can't get over the resemblance to a white Forsythia bush . . .
Den. crumenatum





Den. Maui Sparkle 'Exotic Orchids' has four huge plumes of flowers open now. They're so darned crowded together it's tough to get an individual shot, but I'll try it later when the light isn't quite so bright. They're also way up there above my head.

Oh my goodness, those Dens are beasts!! They are wonderful!!

Thanks, they sure are gigantic. I have another Den I found crowded in the back, with lovely deep red/purple flowers, but - Guess what? It's been pouring rain for an hour - the spraying trick seems to have worked, all that expensive fungicide is now on the pavers. Oh well, I can hope they absorbed a bit of it, maybe. Tomorrow I need to spray fertilizer - it will probably rain then, too.

Will try for a better picture when/if it stops raining. This little tropical wave we have offshore of us is sending us beneficial 'waves' of rain - really can't complain, we need it.

The 'chorus line' of Den. Maui Sparkle all nicely lined up.

Another lovely deep red Den, one of my Apopka bargain NOIDs from years ago. Can't get that color right in the picture, it is even deeper red than this pic shows.

Look at those antelope horns, I like the Chorus line a lot.

These guys were also hiding way at the back of the cage, but I caught a whiff of their nice scent, and tracked them down. This is my second plant of C. gaskelliana coerulea x self. Much more robust than the other one. They'll mature to a lovely pale blue/mauve but are pretty much white at the moment.

Wonderful show at your house Elaine...
That gaskelliana coerulea is gorgeous!

It's always fun to come home after a 2wk. trip, and see what's popping, Lindsey.

Last flower of my Appleblossom season, has that 'beige' tint I'm not too fond of.

And the end of bloom for my huge purple Phal that has truly been magnificent this year.

Leftover sprig of Den. crumenatum, after all the other flowers are already on the floor. They have that 'springtime' scent like, Hmm, narcissus? Or primrose?

Elaine, how pretty! The C. gaskelliana coerulea is a beauty, and I love the Den crumenatum! Nice Show!

That's a terrific photo of the crumenatum.. those flowers are hard to capture. Now if only you could capture that fragrance
The fusarium battle is still being fought over here..12 more plants in the trash this weekend. Enough to actually trigger an asthma event, luckily I have fresh medicine on hand. But I do have a couple of new photos to give me hope and reason to not give up.


Cty. Rhizome Cowboy blooming for the first time.


Myc. Edward L. Waldin, Jr. With a nice second spike on a decidedly unhappy plant.


And L. Zip

Lindsey, that sounds really rough!!😢 Sorry to read this!
Of course your beautiful blooms look like nothing ever happened, luckily those made it.

With our wildly fluctuating temperatures here, I see some of my Orchids slowly resenting the again chilly nights into the forties F.

I hate to hear that also Lindsey. You have worked so hard and your plants are such a joy to you and to those of us lucky enough to see the photos. Do you think it is the fungus spores or the fungicide that is triggering the asthma?

This Cattleya/Laelia purpurata v carnea opened yesterday.



And this eerie light today is created by the dust from the Canadian Fires moving South. The clear sky looks totally cloudy. I actually used a mask to go outside today.

Smart move using a mask.

Ursula said: This Cattleya/Laelia purpurata v carnea opened yesterday.



And this eerie light today is created by the dust from the Canadian Fires moving South. The clear sky looks totally cloudy. I actually used a mask to go outside today.

So big and beautiful!