Oh wow, torrap! Your plants are amazing!!! Do they always live inside, or do you bring them in when they flower? All mine live outdoors hanging from our jacaranda tree in baskets (saves the snail/slug thing from happening). Sadly, it doesn't prevent the $*&)*$ cats from sitting on them from time to time. Dam' cats, swingin' away on my Dancing Ladies! What genus is the green flower with the white centre? I've never heard of Psychopsis (busily going to look it up) - is it related to Oncidium (just going by the colours, not the flower shape)?
I do feel lucky living in the land of Dendrobiums! There are so many of them and they're so little and easily overlooked when walking in the bush. When you come upon one in flower, it's like having a sudden injection of chocolate: pure pleasure!
Once, years ago, we took the kids to a petting zoo place north of here. While the rest of the family was taking photos of the kids milking cows etc, I was marching around looking up in the trees, which were *loaded* with all sorts of Dendrobiums in full flower. It was amazing, as I'd never seen so many in number or in variety in the one place before. Well, just as my poor son was falling off the donkey ride, I happened upon a largish branch which had fallen off a tree. It was chockablock with D. teretifolium, D. linguiforme, D. kingianum, D. beckleri *and* a Sarchochilus falcatus! Something made me pick it up and I carried it back to where my wailing son was just getting an ice-cream from his Granny (no harm done). I asked the property owner if I could take the branch and he said (I kid you not) 'You sure you want it? It's only rubbish!' Hah! The orchids flowered and flowered for me every year - until my son and I moved into college so I could finish my degree. Sadly, Mum killed them with TLC. They drowned.
I've always wondered: do you get native orchids in the US? Well, of course you do, but are they mostly ground-dwellers or epiphytes? Do people cultivate them, or are they classified among general wildflowers? We get a whole lot of interesting ground orchids, but they're very very difficult to cultivate (although some manage it). It's so nice to be able to talk orchids here - there must be a psychological connection between keeping them and parrots, d'you think? Pretty colours?
....and we are 1 mile closer to Sun.......
.
