J
jbp63
Guest
Hi, my name is John. I am new to this group. I have been interested in growing things since I was a child, especially slipper orchids. The first orchid I ever saw was a wild yellow slipper growing in a field behind my house when I was ten. Sadly I have never seen another in person but would love to. However in my teens we moved closer to the Adirondacks still in New York state and I was blessed to see the glowing pink blossoms of cyp. acaule on our property in the late spring each year. Eventually I grew up, got married, discovered paph and phrags, bought too many at the time and moved to Arizona. I have been here since '92. Sadly my collection did not like the low humidity or bright light and became weak and died through lack of knowledge and experience. They grew so well back in New York. Disappointed I took up growing desert plants which seemed impossible to kill here. Now I have a nice collection of frankincense and myrrh plants mostly from Arabia and Africa which love it outdoors here in AZ. Several years ago however my love for slipper orchids resurfaced and I decided to give them another try, vowing to make them survive in the hostile Arizona climate, indoors of course! So far so good, yet I lost many after my wife's death two years ago. At that time I was too upset and often forgot to water and let mealy bugs take over. I didn't care about much at that time after losing my best friend of over 22 years. Thankfully 2/3rds of my collection hung on and I eventually babied them back to health, giving them the attention they need. Now I have several dozen paphs. a few phrags, and assorted other orchids. I have been reading through the posts and searching them for answers to my many questions. There clearly are many knoweldgeable people in this group with a wealth of knowledge to share. It has been a blessing thus far. Even amusing at times, reading of people so "taken" with this "hobby" that some don't appear to even have a place to sleep. Yet in this often crazy world, it is much cheaper to be "taken" with this "hobby" than to give your money to some very nice mental health doctor and have nothing but a bill to show for it and still be depressed. If healthy, glowing green plants, with cheerful long lasting blossoms do not cheer a person up, I do not know what would. God certainly used them to help me through an impossible time in my life. My favorite slippers are the cyps, though they would never make it here in Arizona though I would love to try and recreate a "cold" room in my house some day, or just move back to New York where I could grow them outdoors. Since I cannot have cyps, I enjoy the variety the paphs have to offer the most, tending towards the parvis and their hybrids. Though how can you not be impressed by a mature roth in bloom! My favorite is paph delenatii and I was particularly suprised to find a dunkel variety has appeared on the scene while I was away. Too bad this species has such short lived flowers. Also it is sad, but due to the low humidity here in AZ, fragrances of any sort are very hard to detect, good ones or bad, so I cannot enjoy that about my delenatii's of which I have nearly a dozen various sib crosses. Currently I have a Paph prim. var purp. in bloom, two Magic Lanterns one nice one in late bud, another in sheath. Several vinicolors in sheath, a Gloria Naugle in sheath, along with a Satin Smoke. I am a bit excited that I might have a delenatii var dunkel that might be about to start a sheath. Though I am worried it is a one growth plant and I have read many people do not allow first bloom, single growth plants to bloom, allowing the plant to not lose its strength in flower production. I currently grow my plants in an east window with supplemental lighting. I am trying out the new wide spectrum LED lights OL is selling. So far I like the extremely low wattage and very low heat and that they can be placed well above the plants and still produce noticeable shadows. I am doing my best to keep up the humidity, create air movement, and use good water. I do know one thing, the plants do not like the city tap water here at all! Someday soon I need to get a RO system to save on trips for bottled water. I hope a carbon prefilter will take care of the chlorine in the city water. Well, I have said enough for now. Thanks for having this group.