A little personal stuff and a few new orchids
It is some time since I have posted ; my wife has been ill again, and I preferred to spend the days with her in intensive care, rather than in the greenhouse ; and when I eventually got back in to look at the plants, I found the heating system roaring its head off, the temperature 44 degrees C, and an awful lot of dead and damaged plants. ( a fault in the boiler printed circuit, it seems ) .
I did seriously consider giving up on orchids at that point ; just turn off everything, shut the door, and look the other way. Coming up to 54 years of orchid growing - end with a whimper, not a bang.
Coincidentally I have been worried lately by ever rising energy costs here in UK ; they have about doubled in 3 or 4 years, with no sign of relief in sight. ( We have perhaps enough shale gas under us to last UK 300 years they say, but environmental lobby groups look likely to prevent us ever getting any benefit from it - at least in my lifetime. And of course my age is part of the problem - if this had happened 10 or 20 years ago, I might have built a lab and gone shopping for a lot of flasks but now, - by the time I have grown specimen plants I should be well into my 90s. I need flowering plants now !
I woke up in the small hours one night, with the answer.
Go back to growing cool ; Cymbidiums, Pleiones, anything else from the present collection which survives and grows again . Things which don’t - too bad. Throw them out as soon as I am sure , for out of sight will be out of mind.
I turned the temperature control down to 10 C instead of 15 - halved , maybe even more, my heating costs. I have taken the plunge with LED lights and thrown out the metal ballast 400 watt lamps - which should reduce my elec bill to 25% of what it was .
I expect my first Pleione bulbs any day now, and I went to one of the famous Cymbidium nurseries on the south coast of UK and filled up my car - my wife came for the ride - her first expedition out of the house for some time, and she celebrated by being generous with my Xmas present… Here are just the first few flowers to open - not grown by me .
Cymbidium Satin & Spice “Caramel Surprise” beautifully shapely, and interestingly marked . Cymbidium Gleneagles “Cooksbridge Delight” pink striped petals.
Cymbidium Lambkin “Little Rascal” Green and yellow flowers - which I think should open better , and perhaps fade towards a more apple green.
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