I am an orchid nut. I have 15 different orchids, most phalenopsis but I also have a cattelya, dendrobium, vanilla planifolia, cymbidium, oncidium and a few others. Does anyone else here raise orchids?

I also love tropicals. I have plumeria, hibiscus, bananas, citrus, etc. I used to live in northern MO and I kept all of them indoors until late Spring/Summer. Just because you don't live in the tropics doesn't mean you can't appreciate the beauty of them!

how did you raise plumeria indoors?

i have a clearance orchid i got at the food store and have gotten it to bloom every yr since in fact i have some buds right now so it should be ready to bloom in the week i would hope, maybe you can tell me what it is when i have pics! i know i have them some where on this tread from yrs past.
yours look great! i keep mine inside by our front window, that and my poinsettia have been my 2 prized indoor plants.

found a pic on FB from the last bloom

They're all beautiful! My co worker gave me her orchid when she moved to Hawaii. I have no idea what kind it is nor what color. She wasn't able to get it to bloom again. It's is growing new leaves but no buds. Any ideas? I think it may need to be repotted.

Dietra,
i went to tagawa garden center, and got a new pot and the proper soil as well as some orchid food and it has done great! we can talk tomorrow i also know it has to do with the direction of light as well,they do best facing a certain direction, i think mine is east south facing.....

I'm hoping my orchids bloom again ths year. I repotted them and give them fertilizer *crosses fingers*

Plumeria is tricky. I keep it outside in the later spring/summer/early fall and then "winterize" it in the winter (slowly decrease the amount of water and bring inside..it will lose some or all of it's leaves, but they grow back in the spring)

I love these three sequence pics I took last year, three days in a row.




They smell so wonderful!

Shaqua helps me do my gardening too. lol!

Danzig's Mommy wrote:

They're all beautiful! My co worker gave me her orchid when she moved to Hawaii. I have no idea what kind it is nor what color. She wasn't able to get it to bloom again. It's is growing new leaves but no buds. Any ideas? I think it may need to be repotted.

Most people have phalenopsis varity of orchids (broad thick leaves and twisty, green roots.) . When you repot make sure that the roots have green tips. If they don't your orchid will be stressed unnecessarily. You live in Colorado so an E facing window would be good assuming the window isn't shaded. If needed you can add a plant light on a tier and slowy increase the day length over time. Also, be consistent with watering. My orchids seem to bloom best when they are not over watered.

how big do plumeria get? i absolutely loooooveeee them.

They'll get as big as you let them.... as big as a small tree, really! LOL I keep them in pots, and you can prune them, so I keep them about as tall as you see in the pictures with Shaqua. Well, maybe they are more like 4' tall now, but not much taller. LOL

where did you get yours? i wish i had a bigger sunnier room to keep them in...hmmm i imagine the room needs a lot of light since they are tropical..

I got mine at Lowe's. It's not something they usually carry. I worked there for over 5 years and one year we were accidentally shipped a bunch of plumeria. They ended up selling them on clearance for $1. I actually still remember the item # (I have a thing for #s....). It was 3ll07. I guess if you have a local Lowe's they *might* be able to look it up and see if they can special order it. Depends on the region you are in if the growers even make that available.

Otherwise, you can order them through many growers via Amazon. I would make sure to get the plant though, not the seed. They are difficult to grow from seed (I'm trying, and it isn't working). I would also make sure to get a potted plant, not just a cutting, that way you can be sure that roots are already established.

plumeria

Here's a good one offered from Hirt's. I have ordered from Hirt's before. I have a dwarf red banana tree I just got a few weeks ago that showed up in perfect shape, and I've ordered a few orchids from them (including the alluring vanilla planifolia orchid, that I hope someday will produce vanilla beans) Vanilla beans are difficult to get since the flower on vanilla planifolia only opens for one day and you have to pollinate it in the morning. Then it can take around NINE MONTHS for the bean to mature to the point of harvest. Ever wonder why REAL vanilla is so expensive? Now you know!

i'd love to get into them...but i think i'm going to see if i have luck getting my orchids to rebloom first haha...i imagine plumeria is harder to grow than orchids

Oh, I just realized I looked over Jennifer's question!

Jennifer- That's a phalenopsis. It's a pretty common type of orchid. You can tell by the leaves and the flower shape. It's also known as the "moth orchid". I have too many of those...lol...if you can have too many orchids. When I worked at Lowe's they knew I could get them to rebloom and that I loved them, so they'd sell me all the clearance orchids for next to nothing. Some would be beyond saving, others have been with me for years now. That and I'm a sucker for those orchids at Kroger. Moving around a lot has put a lot of stress on my plants so I haven't had too many rebloom since I arrived in Mississippi.

It looks like you take good care of it! You should add another. They are really happy when they are grown in groupings because it keeps the humidity up. Their native habitat (places like Costa Rica) have very high humidity so it's good to try to mimic that for the happiest plants.

Nicole, your descrption sounds exactly like mine.

I have it in a West facing window, so it catches tons of sun at sundown. But, I could move it out into the living room, which faces the East. That room also gets lots of sun and I do have a good place for it. That forces me to buy another plant lol. I defintely plan to repot it when I go to buy things for the yard. Karen said she only repotted it once.I'll defintely check the roots when I do it. Its growing, just not blooming.

we need a girls trip to the garden center! i could cause LOTS of trouble there

Ditera and Kim if your reading this sign up for the tagawa emails http://www.tagawagardens.com/, they always have deals and lots of classes to take.

Nicole, thanks for the heads up on keeping more then one, like i NEED a reason for another one!! i wish i had the room but right now my one is in a corner behind the sofa near the window. glad to know i was right with the east facing thing.

I will sign up! We could plan that. I'm just buying wildflower seed for the front this year and then when it gets warmer, will do some transplants in the pots I have. I was going to do veggies in the back, but on top of what we already have to do back there, I gave up on that idea.

Anyways.... sorry for the derailment.

Beautiful!
Hubby's mom bought us an orchid plant for our anniversary one year and it died. Sad.
I'm from Hawaii and do miss plumerias and orchids! I just don't have a 'green thumb'!
But I can cook!

I was up to over 75 plants at one time, I've since cut back. At this point I have mainly cattelayas and Paphiopedilum, with a few phalenopsis, dendrobium, and some others scattered.

Nice! Any pics?

UPDATE: After 21 days my plumeria seeds have FINALLY started sprouting! Only two have popped up so far but I hope more will. First time starting it from seed and I am thrilled it actually worked out.

CavingSiberian wrote:

Nice! Any pics?

Well in all honesty, nothing recent. I take lots of pictures for myself, but uploading to photobuckets takes time.

Here are a few older ones;

WOW!

I love your orchid mount! Did you make it yourself or did you buy the plant that way?