Hello Orchid Lovers!

Glad you could drop by. These pages are a learning process for me and also an outlet for my interests. I am not a professional photographer and have only been taking pictures for nearly 3 years - I've sold a couple of these by chance, but being happy with what I've done and being able to share them with others is my motivation. Many of what is pictured is in my collection, others were shot at shows or the New Orleans Botanical Garden or are in private collections.
Brassavola Little Stars
I have been growing orchids for almost 3 years, and now have just over 30 in my collection at present and I am sure it will increase so that in the near future I will probably sneak any new ones into the house through the back door! But they are one of my joys and generally a lot easier to keep than they are given credit for being.
The Isolite experiment has gone well - I've mixed it with roughly equal parts spagnum for holding a little more water, a necessity in the summer months when pots can dry out almost overnight in spite of the high humidity. Paph First Touch and Faire-Maude are looking really great, so I will try some others when it comes time to repot. I learned recently that different media requires slightly different types of root cells to get the plant established - that seems to make sense, because I've noticed that changing produced a noticeable slowdown for a time, more so than repotting in the same medium, but then they really perked up. Live and learn.
Phalaenopsis
Sometimes when I've got a moment I like to just sit out there quietly in the rocking chair and think about the faraway places represented by all these orchids. Why, there are little green leafy ambassadors from Mexico, Thailand, Madagascar and Brazil, Japan, China and even Borneo - places I might not ever be able to go myself, but I can enjoy a little piece of them year-round. Late at night the mosquitos aren't so bad and if I go out and sit and get still for a while, and shortly the little wildlifes get used to me and I can hear frogs singing reallyclose by and see the funny-looking little geckos with translucent bodies on the porch ceiling overhead, and spiders making orbs between leaves - its a really neat way to unwind in the evening - beats TV most of the time, for me, anyway.
Colmanara Wildcat 'Carmela'
The heat has begun to let up finally, I can really tell at night, there is a touch of cooler and less humid air. It's time to back off on the water now, as they do not dry out as fast as they did when it was so intensely hot.

The Brassavola Little Stars has not stopped blooming since the first of June - it even rebloomed on an old inflorescence and is about to do it again - never saw that before, and it still has more to come - mounting it was the best thing for it. Oncidium Sharry Baby has a spike that is over 2' long,
BC Maikai 'Mayumi'
long and is still growing; it bloomed around Christmas for the first time, looks like it will be earlier this time.

I entered my first show recently, the SWROGA show in Shreveport, the Colmanara was in full bloom and so was the Vanda and the Oncidium Golden Shower was still looking good, so they went. Colmanara Wildcat 'Carmela' won 2nd in its class and Oncidium took 3rd in its, that really shocked me, as I'd entered that as an afterthought. I'll post pics later. A real tickle for me, although it felt strange not to see them on the porch every day for that week and I couldn't wait to get them back safe. What a ninny!
More Orchid Pictures
Bonsai
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