mistressofmuses | Monday, February 16: The Denver Botanic Gardens (Part 2

The reason that Alex and I went to the Denver Botanic Gardens was to see one of their temporary exhibits, which was their orchid showcase. Luckily we managed to make it on the final day!

Not a lot of commentary for me, mostly just pictures, ha. So many orchids! Lots of the "usual" ones that are the most commercially available, but a lot of less-common colors and kinds as well. I love them all!

A wall of different kinds!

The star shape of this kind is one of my favorites, and I do love the colors.

17 more orchid pictures:

Speckles.

I like the darker color of these.

Very large!

These are such a cool shape!

I like the contrast between the flowers on the left and the more "slipper" shaped one on the right.

The little ones are neat. Little sprays of stars.

The pale yellow is such a smooth color.

Jailed for crimes.

Spectacular in a group.

Nice color and shape.

A classic fave.

Another nice, soft color. They look a bit like lilies.

I love the star shapes.

Really cool vibrant veining.

Really like how different they are from each other!

Nice pattern.

I love these colors.

I'm very glad we were able to go before the exhibit closed! It was a perfect day to go.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Lots of pretty flowers! The orchid attempting a jailbreak is my favorite, it's such a good visual presentation of the plant!

So many lovely flowers!

I'm a big fan of the jailbreaking orchid. :) I love it! I want to know its orchid crimes.

I love that purple and white veined one! I have a bunch of my own orchids in bloom, if we ever get any sun I can do a little photo shoot for my blooming guys.

I don't have that much variety in my orchids, but I am still happy when they bloom for me.

I love how vibrant the veins show up!

I am glad your orchids (many of which were being rehabbed, weren't they?) are doing well! I hope you have a chance to do some glamour shots of them.

My experience with orchids has mostly been sad, though often exacerbated by moving and ending up having to rehome houseplants. I should give them another go, with a slightly more stable setup.

I love every single one of these! The tri-petal orange one is really neat! I love orchids just about as much as I love roses, but I've been more successful in growing roses. I'd love to be able to grow orchids, but they're not easy, which is weird because they grow so prolific in nature without hardly anything but sticking to trees, getting rain and air.

I'm glad you like them! Those tri-petal ones were really neat. Such a unique shape!

Orchids are lovely. I have managed to grow them with moderate success a couple of times, but have usually had to rehome them due to moving. (I hope some are still doing okay, though at this point it might be unlikely, lol.) I should give them another go. I know they like high humidity, which is often the sticking point here, because it's so dry.

I also saw something in the last year or so that said people usually have trouble with orchids because they keep them in little pots when in reality, you can just stick them on something and that way their roots get not only the water you give them but the moisture in the air, which is what they're used to. So if I ever try orchids again, I may try that and see if there's more success. It's humid here in Texas, but it's more humid down in Corpus where I'm from, so I don't know if they'd do as well here in the Hill Country. Also, I don't know if you've ever read The Orchid Thief (not the weird movie with Nicholas Cage, which is a bizarre meta sort of thing), but there's a great chapter at the beginning about the origin of orchids and how they were the first flowering plant and how they're actually intelligent because of how they've grown and cultivated over the eons. It's really fascinating!

I've heard similar - orchids want their roots to be exposed, and burying them in soil is awful for them. Orchid bark as a substrate is better, but a lot of people try to stick them into regular potting soil and cover up all the roots, but that's not what they want! (Also, they do not like the "just water them by putting an ice cube on the roots!" method of care, which I still see passed around as a "hack.")

It's still probably humid enough that they'll be happy where you are. I'll need to set up a humidifier or a basin of water for them if I give it a try, probably.

I have not read the book, but orchids really are fascinating plants!

I even tried the orchid bark, and it only lasted *maybe 3 weeks* before it gave up the ghost. So I want to just try it with their roots totally exposed. Kathy and I bought some succulents and some other plants that require certain soil and certain stuff like pearlite, so we bought a big ass fucking bag of pearlite. I've had African violets, which I love, but even with the special food, I haven't been able to keep them going for long. Of course, Taylor was sort of a cesspool of shit energy, so I'm thinking that that didn't help either. I've never heard about the ice cube thing, and that just sounds...not really smart. They're tropical plants that love heat and humidity - why the fuck would you put an ice cube on them? Ugh.

I read it for my film and lit class in college, and it was just so interesting! The whole section about when they first appeared and how they're the first flowering plant and have survived for eons by developing something like intelligence, so some smell like rotten meat to attract flies and others to attract other pollinators, so that pretty much *intelligently* they're able to survive by actually adapting to whatever works best to keep them going.

That's a bummer! My orchids have usually done all right in the orchid bark, but they are long gone by this point. My mom has one orchid that Alex bought her, and it seems to be doing well, at least for now.
I need to figure out some better soil for some of my plants. I know that most serious houseplant growers mix their own soil - often using bark or pearlite - but pretty much all of mine are just in whatever was easily available. (Minus a handful of succulents that are in a cactus and succulent mix. But I think they have different watering needs, so really need to be split up from each other.)
Alex has some African violets that have been doing really well for years now, though I think they may want repotting. They're getting what should be too much light for them, but they've kept doing well, so we don't want to mess with them haha.
Hopefully better vibes in the new place will help your plants be happier!

Orchids are really interesting plants. If I recall, there's at least one species that developed flowers to resemble an insect (as a pollination lure), but that insect has since gone extinct? So the bee is gone, but we still have a flower that looks like it.
They are certainly extremely adaptable.

The gorgeous spectrum of orchids is really astonishing. *^^*

I love what a variety there are!

Monday, February 16: The Denver Botanic Gardens (Part 2 - the orchids)

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject