Category Home Orchid Enthusiast

Sep 17 2013

Orchid “Apps” Now Available for the iPhone

Applications for smart phones, or “apps” as they are most often referred to, are changing the way we interact with our world on a daily basis.   Now there are Orchid “apps” for smart phones for Orchid lovers and/or growers which can help you keep track of all the orchids in your collections.

One increasingly popular “app” for the iPhone is the Orchid Notebook.  It helps you keep records on your orchids, their names, their appearance, and it offers helpful hints and tricks on how to grow them.  Orchid Notebook is easy to use.  Just type in the name or number of the Orchid, take a picture with your phone and the entire orchid collection appears on your phone.

Adding, deleting and updating your plants is easy. Orchid Notebook shows a running total of the plants in your collection for a quick reference.  This is particularly helpful when shopping for Orchids at shows and nurseries.

Key Features:
* Learn basic information about orchids
* Discover how to care for orchids
* Read about propagation techniques
* Enter information about the orchids in your collection into the database
* Enter photos of your orchids in your collection
* Build a wish list of the orchids you want to buy
* Export your collection and wish list information via a comma separated value (csv) file allowing the user to import the information into a spreadsheet
* Save a backup of your orchid collection datafile and share it with your other devices (iPhone/iPad)

Collection fields (in the Orchid Database):
* Genus name
* Species name
* Grex name
* Orchid Information – awards, flower color, fragrance, fragrance description, size of plant, size of flower
* Orchid Purchase Information – price, date, source
* Have or Want – the orchids you want are color coded in red
* Growing Conditions – temperature, lighting, water quantity, location
* Orchid details – Mounted, potted, size of pot, month last bloomed, date of last spike,date repotted
* Orchid notes
* Photos of orchid – allows up to 3 photos of each orchid entry

The app offers fairly accurate culture information for the most popular Orchid types including Cattleya, Dendrobium, Oncidium, Paphiopedilum, and Phalaenopsis.    The Orchid Notebook also offers information for uncommon types of orchids such as Brassavola, Encyclia, Phragmepedium, and Vanilla.   The Orchid Notebook includes sample pictures that are most helpful.  It does not yet contain information about Cymbidium, Miltonia, or Vanda.

It is not a perfect app by any means, but it is a step in the right direction.  No doubt, future versions of Orchid Notebook and other Orchid apps will follow that hopefully will be more full featured that this one.    One noted problem with this app, is that important botanical terms such as ‘species’, ‘hybrid’, and ‘variety’ are used interchangeably, even though their meanings are entirely different.  We hope that if enough Orchid Hobbyists comment on this app the authors will get the message and consult real orchid experts to help work out all the bugs of this program.

In the near future, as new orchid applications hit the market, hobbyists will have many more options available to enhance their orchid growing experience. The ‘free’ version of Orchid Notebook allows for five entries of an orchid collection and is just to allow you to try the app before you buy.  The full version of Orchid Notebook is only $2.99.   It is a shame that it is not yet available for the Android world, but if you have an iPhone this is still a good choice for the casual grower or someone just getting into orchids.

Pam Aitchison

Aug 12 2013

Zygopetalum crinitum

Our featured orchid for August is the Zygopetalum crinitum.   It’s common name is “The Hairy Zygopetalum”.

These beautiful orchids are found at elevations of 600 to 1200 meters in the cool and moist mountain ranges of South America.  Most of them are found in Brazil in the mountains near Rio de Janeiro, and Sao Paulo.    They generally bloom from October through December and they produce a tall flower stalk which usually has eight to ten 9 cm flowers on it.    The flowers are fragrant, waxy and very long-lived.  The flowers are generally yellow-green with purple-brown streaks.  The flowers are also prized in cut-flower arrangements.

They have a reputation of being easy to grow for the home orchid enthusiast.  They like to be evenly moist at all times.  Do not let the potting media dry out completely.  They require medium to bright light, and when the light green leaves show some yellowing you can be assured that maximum light is being absorbed.  They require a medium to fine bark with some perlite added for moisture retention.

My Zygopetalum crinitum is in full bloom right now, so it must be confused about what time of year it is.  I got mine at the Santa Barbara Orchid Estate in 2008, and it has been reliably blooming every year since then.   Give this one a try.  You will be very happy you did.

Jul 15 2013

Window Orchid Display Table Example

Everyone loves to display their blooming orchids in their homes.   Putting them all around the house adds a nice decorators touch to each room, but you can also put them all on one table for a more dramatic display.    Your friends and family will love to see what you have blooming, and the display is constantly changing throughout the year, so it never looks the same.

Here is a sample window display you can set up in your home to show off your blooming orchids.  Remember to put it in an East or North facing window.  No direct sunlight as it can burn the tender leaves of some orchids, such as Phalaenopsis.   Also the humidity inside homes is usually quite low, especially in the winter and the hot part of the summer when the air conditioner is running.  You can provide more humidity by using a humidity tray under the orchids.

To set up a homemade humidity tray,  place a shallow pan filled with gravel, decorative pebbles or lava rock on your table and fill with a small amount of water.  Set the orchid pots on top of the rocks, but never let them sit in standing water.  The pots should be above the water level at all times.

Keep your inside orchids clean by hosing off the entire plant in the bathtub or outside about once a month.  Do this in the morning so the plant will have time to dry off completely during the day.  Also never let water accumulate at the growing point on Phalaenopis (the point where the leaves connect at the center).   Water left in the crown can lead to crown rot, so dump out, and blow out any remaining water on the plant before putting back on the table.

Lastly a small fan for air circulation would be very helpful.  Put it on a timer and have it run for a few hours, on and off during the day.   Orchids love moving air.

Best of luck on your home display.