Archive for the 'Problems' Category

A Tropical Heat Wave

Saturday, June 14th, 2008

Well, a little sub-tropical heat wave, anyway. We’ve had almost 3 weeks of fog-less days, unusual weather for this time of year in San Francisco. For the past few days, it’s stayed in the 80’s or 90’s F (27-37C.) That’s warm for us, since the fog bank usually starts to air-condition the coast in spring. […]

Orchid Post Mortem: Sophronitis

Tuesday, May 20th, 2008

A gardener friend once told me that if I’m not killing plants, I’m not learning anything. I do try to avoid fatalities in my learning process, but they still happen sometimes. This beautiful bloom is from last year, when my little Sophronitis cernua was doing well. This Cattleya relative is native to Brazil. I’ve kept […]

Orchid of the Day: Dockrillia

Saturday, April 5th, 2008

This Dockrillia striolata flower opened today. This orchid is a small Dendrobium relative from Australia. It was a pleasant surprise this morning, because I’ve had this orchid for 6 years, but it’s never bloomed for me. I’m not sure what I finally did right to help it bloom. Yes, that’s a fat aphid in the […]

Orchid mush

Saturday, February 2nd, 2008

A friend of mine asked me about her Phal. She’s had it blooming in her living room for months, and suddenly this week the flowers all drooped and fell off. Then the bottom leaves turned to mush. I didn’t even need to see the plant to make a diagnosis — poor drainage. It turned out […]