On the plus side for Seattle, I’m in fern heaven here! And there are massive tulip farms just outside of town. So I don’t have it so hard here either :)

Wow so cool! I wish I lived in a climate where growing outside on trees was possible. I live in Seattle, not exactly prime territory. Although I would like to learn about orchids native to the area.

It’s pretty good! I have only listened to a few episodes so far. I have tended to skip through the first 30-40% of the episodes, which has been a lot of discussion of the guest’s academic training and career, which isn’t very interesting to me personally. After they finish talking about that, I usually enjoy the rest of each episode!

Wow! Good luck getting to 100! What city are you in?

I heard about the orchid project on this podcast episode, a pretty interesting interview: https://www.indefenseofplants.com/podcast/2022/5/29/ep-371-the-million-orchid-project

What a cute idea! How many have you given away so far?

Reminds me a bit of the Million Orchid Project, where plants are given to community members and schools to plant out in their community https://fairchildgarden.org/science-and-education/science/million-orchid-project/

It looks terrific! I’ve never seen one of those growing so rambunctiously. Why do you think your succulents usually get leggy?

So satisfying to bring a plant back from the dead! Congratulations! The color is really pretty in the newest picture. Does it normally change color throughout the year or is the color change a reaction to the stress?

Love it! They look so fragile during that process. Like a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis

Beautiful! The waxy case makes them seem so precious and special to me.

I haven’t ever gotten them to re-bloom on purpose. I just keep them around for years and periodically they do. Some re-bloom much more often than others. I got a few orchid books out of the library recently to take a more informed approach. It seems like many different factors can influence re-blooming and that it depends on the genus/species. Temperature changes like you mentioned, also day length, amount of light, even pressure changes with the weather! Good luck with your orchids.

I know what you mean! To be honest I get pretty excited about new roots too haha, all new growth is exciting

Here is a picture from today showing the current state of the spike, along with an emerging root!

Great question! I know for sure because the picture is from a couple of weeks ago and by now it’s clearly a flower spike.

I had your same question when the growth was at the stage shown in the picture. I looked up how to tell the difference between flower spike and root. What I learned was that two signs of flower spike are:

• Located right below the middle of where a leaf attaches to the stem, because that’s the location of a node that can become a flower spike. Roots can come from a greater variety of locations around the stem.
• Shaped like a mitten, in other words the growth is slightly asymmetric. I believe the thumb is a forming node and the fingers part is where the spike will continue growing. The mitten shape is not present in this image, it developed a day or two later. In contrast, a developing root is fully symmetric/round.

There may be other signs too or these may be incorrect, please share if you know them!