Christmas came early

I have been wanting to grow some Phal gigantea alba for a while and was already thinking about buying them overseas when I chanced upon Julius Ng's FB post. He had some "Ta Wei"seedlings for sale at very reasonable prices. I arranged to view the plants and came back with five pots. Four gigantea alba seedlings and one Gigantea alba X Ambo flava seedling. The Phal mariae alba was tempting but I think it won't flower well in our weather.

Germination of gouji seeds

I harvested some gouji berries and decided to try and germinate some seeds. Extracted and washed, they are placed on planting mix, covered  and moistened with waterspray before being covered. I used a takeaway food container.

Phal Stephanie Chen

One quick photo before the miticide spray.  This particular seedpod has produced very diverse flowers from almost all white to white with splashes of colour, some yellow some greenish. The ones I like are those with concentric circle markings, some with bold thick yellow markings on white, others appear as fine yellow concentric markings on white.

Selfing vs Insects pollination.

Two seedpods from the Anselia Africana alba plant created by insects...  I left the blooms alone and was surprised to find these 2 seedpods developing.

This seedpod on the Paraphalaenopsis denevei is the result of the selfing done. Its growing quite nicely.

Peyote repotting ...

Finally got down to repotting the overgrown Peyotes. I couldn't find the cactus potting mix that I usually use so had to made do with my own mix. Garden soil, perlite, vermiculite and some other ready potting mix bought from the nursery. Basically I wanted something that doesn't retain too much water.

Went galaventing.....

Went galaventing to catch some autumn colours......  pretty spectacular display of colours and the weather was great. The crowd was a bit overwhelming tho....

Bulbophyllum spiesii

This one is outgrowing its pot....  I had to make an extension to accomodate the next growth. Maybe its time to divide the plant.