More rainy day blues

Phalaenopsis sapphire's galah, this was from a Taiwanese vendor during one of the orchid shows.

Phalaenopsis tetrapis C1

When I bought this orchid, it was tagged as Phalaenopsis tetrapis C1 blue ,  the colour was pretty intense and even. This bloom is squeezed against the mounting fern bark and orchid is just recovering from a mealy bug infestation. Still it looks pretty good despite not being 100%

Rain , rain , more rain.....

Lots of rain these couple of weeks but  the rain sensors are doing a good job cutting off the waterings whenever it rains. Found this old Eria specie flowering as I was clearing the garden this morning. Hidden amongst the ferns at the base of my red palm cluster. I trimmed of the leaves to get a better picture of the blooms.

Hello 2018

First post for 2018.....what better start than the full bloom Paraphalaenopsis denevei. I did some selfings after taking this photo.

First bloom, clean lines

A first bloom for this seedling, clean white petals with yellow concentric markings.

Second blooming

Both the Paraphalaenopsis denevei and the Bulbophyllum agastor are reblooming into the year end...   quite a few of the others are blooming as well thanks to the cooler weather these couple of weeks.

We are online !

Finally got the system up and running after some modification..... Basic network up and running. divided into 4 watering zones. The orchid zones come on at 5.00am and 5.15 am respectively with each watering lasting 12 minutes. The plant zones come on at 5.30 am and 5.45am also for 12 minutes. The afternoon session comes on at 4.45pm and 5.00 pm for orchids and 5.15 pm, 5.30pm for plants each runs for 10 minutes.   The next step will be to check and fill in the blind spots.


The wires connect to the rain sensors which works perfrctly and cuts off watering whenever it rains.  I put in a vaccum breaker to prevent backflow, pressure reducer to bring the water pressure down to a constant 25psi so the drippers and misters don't get forces out of the tubings. You also see some adapters as the various parts come in 1/2" and 3/4" sizes.

I use 1/2" tubings for the main lines and 4mm tubings for the feeder lines.