Daylily Surprise! And Lycaste Horrors!

Earlier this year, Ernest DeMarie, who has a blog of his own, decided to let me have a good portion of his daylilies!. After growing them all spring, they have started to flower!

The first one to flower was the Malaysian Monarch! The first flower to open up did so on June 16th, 2010. And the next one to open was on June 22nd. Both flowers were from different plants, so I know that at least two of them are the same. I tried to self pollinate the second flower that came up. We will have to wait a while to see what comes of this, but I hope it's seedlings are as beautiful as the parent. Here are some pictures:

The plants themselves have had a rough year, as you can probably notice by the leaves. After being dug out of Ernies garden, I left them outside for a night before putting them in the ground (I came back too late to put them in). I think many of the roots dried out considerably during this time, and once they were put into the ground, my constant watering has helping them recover. Many of my lilies have had leaves which were turning yellow, or which were extremely dry, starting from the tips and running down the leaves. However, they all are alive, and seem to be doing better.

Unfortunately, I cannot say the same for the Lycaste from my last post. While it is a beautiful plant, I decided that putting it outside will help it get more light. I put it in a shaded area, near a bush. However this was a horrible idea. The leaves started turning brown from the tips, and even worse, the leaves started flopping! This is never good for any plant, much less an orchid. I have since brought the plant indoors in an attempt to recover it. One leaf is not almost completely brown and the other is turning brown slowly from the tip. Any Lycaste growers with experience who might be able to help me, please comment below!

And here is a picture of the poor Lycaste aromatica:

In both pictures you can clearly see that the damage is both severe and intense. Now I know better. Many people online says the thing grows fine at home, so i am keeping it indoors until further notice.

In the second picture a keen eye might be able to make out an oncidium about to flower. I will definitely blog about this, if the event comes to pass!

Lycaste aromatica

This past weekend my girlfriend, Donna, stayed over my place, and we had one of the best weekends ever. We had gone to six flags and we took many photos.

One of the better parts of the trip was heading out to see Ernie. He has given me so many plants this year, it is hard to thank him enough. Perhaps posting a link to his blog will help. Click here.

While walking through his collection I was able to witness awesome orchid blooming outside his house. I saw how he resurrected a near dead spring cactus. I also witnessed a Cattleya with a beautiful scent by the window. A flowering Pinguicula was also nice. However the most awesome part was when he gave me one of his Lycaste aromatica!

Donna was kind enough to hold the plant for me while I took pictures. I didn't know the flower wouldn't last long. It is now turning a dark brown color :(. To be fair the flower did last from Friday throughout the weekend until Monday, when it started to loose all of its fragrance.

I have wanted a Lycaste aromatica ever since I was in high school. Now I have one! I hope it flowers more next year. According to the pictures online, the plant has the potential to flower profusely (10 or more flowers), in any given year. Too bad I have to wait a year to see what it does.

On another note, the wiki page for this orchid is a stub. Click here to see it. There is no information on where the plant occurs, what kind of hybrids can be made with it, what the scent of the flower is like (cinnamon), nor how common the plant is. I know I am not very popular in the blogosphere, but if anyone cares to make this worthless stub of a wiki page actually worth looking up, feel free to edit it!

On one last final note, my Oncidium is about to flower. More on that later!