New orchid

I has just wandering in a nearby shop and then I just saw one of these and just got to buy it.

The plant tag says Dendrobium nobile though the plant may be a hybrid. On plant tag there also reads that "This orchid will flower for a long time and is very easy to care for." I have wanted a Dendrobium orchid for a long time but have just been to lazy to order via internet. Long live and great flowering for this orchid!

I think making a full post about updates on my orchid would be nice but at the moment I'm in a hurry so I will show you photos of my orchids during the next week.

Cross succeeded!

Mini update. My first cross ever has succeeded. As you can read from my previous post I pollinated P. moctezumae with pollen of  P. emarginata and seeds were ripen 4 days ago. The seeds have now been sown and hopefully they will grow into beautiful plants.

This is not a new cross but I hope I can see how the different abilities of the parent plants have transmitted to the hybrids.

Seeds of my another cross P. emarginata x moctezumae have not ripen yet but I have seen no signs of withering in flowerstalks of P. emarginata.

I will keep you up to date how the seeds are doing as soon as there is something to tell about.

Colours of the Fall

Hello! Long time no see.

I have a good reason why I haven't written here for a while. I just had the big tests that mean a lot for my future and I really wanted some time to focus on them.

Thanks for everybody reading my blog. I was just amazed when I saw that on 20.9.2012 my blog had 59 pageviews. Only during one day. Total of my pageviews are now over 4000 and it's all thanks to you. Thank you for reading my blog.

In my previous post I promised you some news about my Sarracenia. This blog post I'll start with my favourite. Sarracenia psittacina.

Followed by some hybrids including Sarracenia purpurea



This year I'm especially proud of all of my North american plants. Flytraps made a big suprise this year growing better than ever because of greenhouse conditions.



Flytrap in this picture used to have only those 2 brown leaves which you can see dried in the picture. Plant then started producing nicer leaf rosette after repotting and made another plant right beside another. They will grow into some beautiful flytraps during next summers.



Drosera venusta was first happy about greenhouse conditions but then started dying the biggest rosette and now the plant has smaller rosettes which are growing well.



Drosera binata grew all nicely during summer forming many flowerstalk but didn't produce any seeds.



Non carnivorous bromeliad Cryptanthus sp. turned all red in the greenhouse Ending this blog post with flowers



Drosera capensis. Not special but still pretty.



Pinguicula moctezumae. Received this plant from Zlatokrt.
The plant had a flowerstalk when it arrived and after a while it flowered and is now pollinated with pollen of Pinguicula emarginata because it was only other Pinguicula blooming at the moment I'll be waiting for seeds of Pinguicula moctezumae x emarginata to rippen. I also made this cross vice versa pollinating P. emarginata with P. moctezumae's pollen so I will hopefully have Pinguicula emarginata x moctezumae seeds soon too.

That's all for now. Soon I will put my temperate plants in regridgerator for their winter dormancy and I will then focus on my tropical plants. See you later.

Ping-Ping-Pinguicula update

It has been a while since I've posted pictures of my Pinguicula.



One of the loveliest pinguicula at the moment are P. emarginata x (moranensis x ehlersiae) triplets.










Pinguicula emarginata has totally conquered it's pot and is blooming non stop



Pinguicula x Tina has revived and is flowering again but is not too happy about it's small pot.



P. esseriana is a nice plant, which I think I should propagate more through leaf cuttings. One big plant looks too lonely.



P. moranensis x ehlersiae a.k.a. fake Weser. Nothing special about this plant but it would be nice if it was just a bit bigger.



P. laueana is having nice reddish colour on it's leaves and I hope that the plant is soon ready to bloom.



That's all so far about my Pinguicula. The summer is soon gone and autumn is coming. Just hoping that the weather would warm a bit for the end of the summer. All the plants have grown very rapidly and most of the plants have developed very beautiful colour in my greenhouse. Next post will 100% sure include Sarracenia and flytraps because I want to show you how you can have good results with them even in this north.

New Utricularia and Pinguicula

Yesterday arrived P. moctezumae and U. geminiloba from Zlatokrt. Big plants in very good condition. Posting new blog post with photos soon.

U. asplundii and a flowering pygmy

Nothing more but a small update of two plants.



U. asplundii seeds received from Sebulon germinated quickly and the plants have even 3 leaves. They grow in mixture of peat and sand with some fine orchid bark. They have been growing in room temperature all time and I hope that this will make the most fittest plants to survive in my conditions. Can't wait till they are big enough to flower.



My own gemmae grown D. omissa x pulchella flowering is a nice sight.

For the next blog update I'm going to write about some of my stickier plants.

Focusing on epiphytic Utricularia

Epiphytic Utricularia are plants that I have gathered most during this spring. Before this spring and summer I cultivated only U. alpina, reniformis and nephrophylla. Later I got U. nelumbifolia, alpina x humboldtii, alpina x endresii and nelumbifolia x reniformis which I think are quite easy plants to grow. I also bought some seeds of U. apslundii which germinated and I will soon post a pic of the babies. Here is my collection of epiphytic Utricularia. U. nephrophylla from Serra dos Orgaos blooms regularly in my conditions and is very heat tolerant. U. nelumbifolia from Serra do Brigadeiro is a vigorous grower when I keep the water level near the soil level U. reniformis lost some of it's leaves when I took the plant outdoors. The leaves are a bit stronger now and there are already signs of increased growth thanks to higher light levels. By the first look U. alpina x endresii looks dead but underground tubers have not rotted. I still have high hopes on this plant. When U. nelumbifolia x reniformis arrived it had only one leaf which decayed short after it's arrival but after that plant showed it's hybrid vigor and is maybe the fastest growing of my epiphytes. The biggest leaf has some kind of hydrofobic surface which allows the waterdrops ro roll over the leaf. This is kinda weird characteristic which I have not seen on any carnivorous plant before. U. alpina x humboldtii looks first like it has done nothing since it arrived but after a long wait if finally started growing a new leaf. U. alpina didn't like it when I took it off the pot just to see it's "roots". I then repotted it to new sphagnum moss. Now the plant is growing new leaves again and hopefully I will see some flowers when the weather gets colder.

Greenhouse

Hello. I now have a greenhouse, or actually ma family has one. We build it up in the mid june and most of my plants have been growing there since then. Here are some results of the greenhouse cultivation in Finland. Flytrap is getting some nice colour. D. spatulata planted in snaps glass is blooming Drosera spatulata 'Bloody Red' showing some colour and blooming The mass bloom of U. livida 'Blue Flower Increased ammount of light has affected to colour of the U. livida 'Blue Flower''s leaves which have turned partially a bit salmon colourred Utricularia bisquamata flowering first time for me. For a while this plant seemed to be dying but then I took it to the greenhouse. First it conquered the whole pot and then made few nice flowerstalks.
Drosera tomatosa.. sorry Drosera tomentosa gained nice red as tomato colourration and looks like really thriving in the greenhouse.   Drosera regia seedlings. Mataveri from CPUK sent me about ten seeds of this species and luckily 2 seeds germinated. Drosera felix growing lots of flowerstalks but not looking too happy by the look of its leaves My Cryptanthus sp. grows nicely alongside with my Utricularia Drosera oclanceolata looks now a bit pinkish Drosera omissa x pulchella is the plant which changed my opinion about pygmy sundews. I used to think that they're not anything special or even cute. Not I'd like to have more but the growing space that I can offer to the plants is pretty much taken. A bug climbing on Sarracenia leaves. This bug later became food for the venus flytrap.