Dancing Ladies

This is my only orchid which is blooming this year. Wonder if it has to do with the positioning of the plants besides feeding and watering. I shifted all of them to another corner last Spring.

What's growing in my garden

I have been killing lots of plants in the last 2 years, thanks to me neglecting them.
This year, when anything blooms I felt really excited as it felt so rewarding watching the plants grow despite me giving them very little care.
The chilli plant this year has fruited, and for the first time, my succulent bloom a brocolli looking flower.
The lemon grass has also successfully survived in the veggie bed.
Lastly, my one and only blooming cymbidium orchid. (this year it gave out two spikes).
What's growing in your garden?

HOS spring show 08

this year the HOS spring show fell on the same day as the ladies retreat. I divided my time between the two events as I have volunteered to be a certificate writer at the spring show.



I didn't take many photos this year not because the show wasn't pretty. I found that when I have too many photos, i ended up not posting them at all.


So this year, these are my favourites from the show:

This year's club display shows orchids by a 'stream'. it's amazing how the committee comes up with all the ideas to put on a display. they usually meet up at the president's house over lunch and then discuss what sort of materials, and the 'theme' they want to set up.

I like cattelya. they have big flowers and they also have a nice scent. Unfortunately I haven't got one in my collection.
This is a cross between zygopetalum (see below) and something else.

A zygopetalum. see the resemblance in the last photo?

Another view of the club display..
Laelia..even the name is pretty!
This grassy speciment actually belongs to the orchid family too. I think it is called dendrochillum.
Floral arrangement category.
Another type of dendrochillum. This one has slightly bigger flowers ..the scent of the flowers are just amazing.
The grand champion of the show. It bagged several trophies.
The grand champion in close-up!! perfect composition, , size etc!!!!

what's blooming now..

here's the bloomer this month.


This is allysum also known as sweet alice. The colour for the above is called Rose.
I bought them in November as seedling punnet and planted them into the garden bed.
Two months later, it's blooming. Allysum is a type of perennial and they are normally mass planted on garden bed as borders.

I have killed an anthurium before. This time I tried to make sure this one survive. I got them sometime in August and it wasn't doing very well in September. Even as I was being careful, the plant looked very limp/droopy.Then an orchid member told me, anthurium loves warmth and loves a good soak in the water. I went home and immediately immerse the whole pot in a bucket of water. When the bubble stops bubbling on top of the potting mix, I brought it back into my living room. The next day, the whole plant perks up.
In December, I saw a bud. (You have to look real hard on the left hand side pic). In January, the flower bloomed. It's a pink anthurium. In Summer, I have to water it 3 times a week.

meet Masdevallia Coccinea

I was invited to Michelle's house after the orchid meeting and she decided to give me a Masdevallia Coccinea. when i received the plant, the left (tall spike) is in bud. about a week later, it bloomed. the 3rd one is still to bloom (the middle spike).

i have never tried planting Masdevallia before - borrowed a whole book about Masdevallia from the club library . but i haven't sat down and 'study' it. so far, i mist it every now and then. i understand it originated high up on the mountain approximately 4000m /13,000ft high from sea level..there is a wide range of colours available ..

p/s: michelle is my orchid club friend and has 3 cats which is not really hers but she feeds them and treats them like her children. she has amazing garden and besides growing orchid, she is also into Bromeliad. 

howick annual spring show

on sat, sept 30, the howick orchid society held its annual spring show. the committee took friday afternoon to assemble the hall and on saturday morning, it started at 8am-judges judging the plants and trophies awarded.

i volunteered as the certificate writer, so time past real quick and the show opens to public at 10am. i was also in charged of the door, so me and jim, collect and dish out entry tickets to the public.

show was a success. due to my limited memories in my memory card, i took only some 60 pics..but here are my favourites.

1st row: l to r: numerous trophies, beautiful cymbidium, more cymbidiums in different shades of colour, the most right is called Son of Freak. What a name.

2nd row: white paphiopedilum (Slipper orchid), odonts alliance type orchid -they are really colourful and i am tempted to buy to add to my collection but i didn't, as they can be quite demanding.

3rd row: cattleya/laelias, lycaste, more cattleyas or laelias- they come in all shades of colour, thanks to the work of hybridist.

4th row: Pleoines , they are alpine type plants, heaps of australian dendrobiums, another white/greenish intermediate cymbidiums, and finally, the grand champion, - masdevallia.

spring is here..

i can't believe spring is here. weather's warmed up, flowers are blooming and daffodil is no exception. i have only come to realise how pretty they are this year. i used to associate them to cancer society flower but last saturday was an eye opener. they are so many varieties out there. see sampler above.
they come in all shades of colors and sizes.. some are huge and some are tiny..
some are fragrant... the big ones look almost like artificial silk flower.

the daffodils above are exhibited by howick horticultural society. marnee's active in the club and invited me to check them out.

besides daffodils, there's plenty to see in the show. check out the camellias (below). i had mistaken some for hibiscus and carnations.



different shades of camellias..

there were also orchids and fruits being exhibited. i don't know how they judge the fruits ..but it's interesting to see.

stace, that big giant spike of little yellow flowers are part of the black rose..(left to right :3rd pic)
i am waiting for mine to give out big spike of flowers like the pic ..kekeke.

this is a flower from the magnolia tree. they are in abundance now..they are as big as my palm.

south auckland orchid society show

i brought my two orchids (one zygo and one cymbidium) to the club meeting on 13/08 for the purposes of club display and to get more advice on how i can better plant them. The people loved the zygo. J Scott who's a very good grower said it was very well grown during the plant commentary. J Duff who grows really good zygo, along with several other people said i should put mine into the coming show at papakura on 19/8 The zygo won the best novice votes ;) at the club meeting. so at the end of the meeting, i left my two orchids with G who will bench them for me. i had to admit, i was a bit hesitant that they were not coming home with me.

on saturday, i was nervous. talked jake into going to the show with me. brought my camera and as i entered the hall, i started looking for my plant.

i found them in the novice section and the zygo's won 1st prize and the cymbidium won 2nd prize in another class. i was and still am over the moon. i entered the competition not expecting to win anything and i bagged two prizes home.

Thai Exotic Fruit Festival

a while ago, (mid july) i went to the Thai Fruit Show and Exhibition @ Auckland City. In fact it's really close to China where I had yum char (read previous post).

It was an eye-opener, and i was really impressed with what's in the exhibition.
I couldn't stop snapping pictures when I was there. there were orchids, fruits, silk, and FOOD ..the festival was to clebrate King Bhumipol's 60th year of becoming the King of the Thai kingdom.

l to r: above: lady making the silky thread, what's produced, yards and yards of the silky thread.
l to r: below: thread in different colour, and some description of thai silk

more silk, in all types of patterns..

i reckon almost the whole auckland thai community is there. the girls were doing the thai performance. i like their head ornaments :)


couldn't resist taking pictures of the colorful silk threads.

my not-so-new addition

meet pregnant onions...i got it from michelle, a friend at orchid clubs. it's not edible, and the babies will just grew out as offset.

i googled and find out extra information about the pregnant onion 

howick orchid society- what happens at monthly meetings

i belong to the howick orchid society and have been a member since 2003.
it is through that club that i picked up tips and pointers on how to cultivate orchid. it helps to know how the people around your area grow their orchid.
this year i joined the committee as the money woman aka the treasurer. it's been fun so far.
here's a glimpse on what normally takes place in the meeting.


Top row : members sit and listens to the president/speaker to deliver the topic of the day.
Speaker of the day, Graham Andrews who own a big garden supply shop has come to be speaker of the day. He talks about different products (chemicals, equipments , etc)

Bottom row: prizes for the raffles/ the mobile library with books of all sorts about orchid. i dare say the collection is better than any of the libraries i've been.

there's also tables for popular and novice votes . the plants belong to the club member and there will also be plant commentary on the plants for the popular and novice votes. below is a sampler of members plant:
multitude of colours ..they are so pretty.

this one has really special container made up of punga log (the trunk of big fern plant)

Commercial Grower at Drury -part 3

i don't know why i left out this grower when i blogged about the commercial grower.
this nursery has 3 shade houses-2 orchids and 1 succulents.
this grower, Dave specialises in dendrobium (although you can also find some zygo and cattleyas in the orchid shadehouse).
some of his dendrobiums are huge..i think they are more than 10 years old.
i bought some succulents and home-made clover honey from him.
enjoy the gallery of pics i took of his lovely plants.

believe it or not, both flowers come from the same parent plants/ seedlings but the colours can vary. that's the beauty of hybridisation.

This is a zygopetalum orchid. Notice the intensity of the purple color on the lip from 2 different plants.


this is the gigantic dendrobium orchid. look at its size relative to average dendrobium.

these are some of the complementary plants in the orchid shadehouse. the hanging/cascading ones are spanish moss. they are a type of air plant.

another type of dendrobium orchid.

this is a succulent plant. not sure if it's aeonium or echeveria but i adore its symmetry.

this is my favourite photo. it's also the result of hybridisation. the plant has the same parents as the first two photos you see.

two bromeliad that caught my attention.


two succulents that's filled every inch of the pot. the left one is called the sempervivum aka hen and chicks and the right one is the 'organ pipe' crassula.

Commercial Grower at Drury -part 2

i also had the opportunity to visit another grower. was greeted by his little terrier. he's real camera shy.
This grower is more old-school. interesting point to note, he hails from holland too. he plants mostly anthuriums. he also had orchids. *mainly oncidiums (the yellow coloured orchid), some odontoglossum


he had so much variety of anthurium around , they were really spectacular.
here's some sample of his beautiful collection.

*putting them on a grid like this do them no justice, but that's the best i can come up with.

Commercial Grower at Drury -part 1

i went to a commercial grower at Drury, about 30mins from South Auckland on the last week of May. it was part of an outing organised by the orchid society.
I was expecting muddy, and drippy places.. but i came to something totally opposite.
the area is sterile. it's an eye-opener.

*seedlings are grown on the floor of the enormous glass houses. there's at least 1-2 acres of glasshouse. some workers were working on the seedling. there were anthuriums, bromeliads, ferns and orchids grown inside the glasshouse. was told there were also vegetable seedlings too.. the roof captures the heat and sunlight. the whole facility is based on dutch technology. the dutch actually came and build the facility.

*that's one of the partner of the nursery. he was giving an extensive talk about growing phalaenopsis in the commercial sense. there were rows and rows of phallies in the glasshouse and he supplies them to the florist or the plant shop. he has worker whose job is staking the phalies stocks. guess what's cooking in the drums?? hehe fertiliser. there were a row of about 5 big drums, and each contains specific fertiliser for different plant group.

*baby phallies, and the various type of bromeliads.