It's All About the Blossoms...

"The world well knows, yet none knows well, to shun the heaven that leads us to this hell."

~ Shakespeare's Sonnets

Seeing as how I minored in English Literature, (man! that got me a lot of job offers!) I feel qualified to interpret this quote, up above. I'm pretty sure Shakespeare was talking about getting Orchids to re-bloom.

I've received a lot of Why Bother? emails this morning, after I glorified Orchids in yesterday's post. From all sorts of gardeners questioning whether growing Orchids are worth it. "They're scary / They're fussy / They're blah, blah, blah."

All good points. (Especially that 3rd one.) But, riddle me this:

Why do we buy flowering annuals?

Because they flower forever and ever.

And, so do Orchids! The pretty pink gal in these pictures flowered from January through July! You can easily get 6 months of pretty indoor color out of an Orchid... all the while you're killing them.

My whole point is... you don't have to suffer through 6 months of non-bloom time. You could just toss her in the compost pile and buy yourself another one. That is, after all, what we do with our flowering annuals...

* I'm gaga over Phaleanopsis Moth Orchids because mine actually has re-bloomed. Which, naturally, makes me feel like a rock star. But, you could probably make this happen, too. She gets way more sun than she's supposed to. Plus, she's high as a kite on phosphorous and potassium. I water her once per week, soaking her for 30 minutes in warm water and highly diluted fertilizer. (Make it 2 weeks, in a non-desert climate.)

PS: This one's for you, dear Garden Faerie. A polka dot Phaleanopsis Moth Orchid could be a lovely dose of color while you're waiting on the baby Nasties to bloom. :))

Red Butte Garden's Orchid Sale: Come to Mama!

Brassidium Shooting Star Black Gold

 I was trying to be strong at the local orchid show. But then I rounded the corner, saw this crazy gal, and got weak in the knees... Seriously? $15 dollars? Come to Mama!

If you're a fan of the PBS Nature series, you've probably seen this rude trick: While animal Mom is out foraging for food, some techno geek sneaks into her underground den and installs a live camera.

Sheesh! While I feel that's a horrible invasion of privacy, if things get any worse around here, I may have to do that, too. With my Daffodils.

Because somewhere out there? Underneath drifts of fresh snow... is a whole garden of happy spring flowers. Not to mention a few hard to find Easter eggs.

Lady Slipper Orchids are endangered. The gal who grabbed this one right out from under me was in mortal danger, too.

April, I am sorry to say, is the second snowiest month of my year. [With March being the first.] Right about the time I've had it up to here with the color of white... 'true winter' kicks in.  April Showers, high mountain style, snow vs. dreary rain.

Which is why I am ever so grateful to have Red Butte Gardens to fall back on. Not only did they dazzle us with the most amazing Orchids I've ever seen. They were selling these breathtaking blossoms for a mere pittance! (Long live the Mastercard.) Enjoy the show:

Easter Parade

Every Friday, KC and I get together for a long, hard hike. Then we hightail it to a restaurant where we consume at least as many calories as we burned. (Hey! We earned it.)

This week, we switched up our routine, skipping the hike and heading straight to lunch. Why didn't we think of that years ago??

I still got a great workout. We spotted a 50% off sale at the local flower store. So, I arm-wrestled other gardeners for great deals.

I bought a newfangled Easter Cactus (above) to keep Edna (below) on her toes. You remember, Edna, don't you? The Christmas Cactus I've had since college. She began flowering last November. Still going strong. That's 4 months longer than normal.

This does not have me delighted. I fear she's trying to tell me something. Like ~ pay attention to these blossoms, buckaroo, this is my last hurrah. I sincerely hope that is not the case.

Not the best photo of Edna, though it sure has everybody excited. Look behind her grand display of flowers to understand why. You can just make out a.... vacuum cleaner!

Hmmm... I wonder if it still works? It's been so very long since I've turned it on... 'Tis a holiday weekend.  I may just have to give that a try.

I came home from vacation to discover that one perfectly horrible housesitter let some of my (indoor) flowers die. And, I know of only way to manage that grieving process...

Buy new ones and try it again!

I hope you've enjoyed the old and the new. Happy Easter to one and all....

Tallying Up a Week of Neglect

"Aw... You missed me!" Big smile when I spotted the pretty pink blossoms of my re-blooming Orchid. She decided to flower while I was off on vacation.

First thing I do when I return home is race around to see who survived my favorite pair of house-sitting yahoos. As in my darling daughter and her cute as a button boyfriend who can somehow sit in my living room and watch tv without noticing my desperately thirsty flowers!

Shocking, I know, though they are fully capable of committing such heinous crimes...

Rats! R.I.P. dear Cymbidium.

This was a particularly challenging week for the flowers ~ indoors and out. One yahoo forgot to put the emergency brake on her car. It rolled down the hill and parked itself in my street garden!

I have not, as yet, tallied up all the damage though I can definitively say it's gonna cost her big time. As in a full summer of pro bono weeding. Plus, manual labor digging a new fish pond if the little Windflowers don't make a happy comeback.

Double rats! Huge apologies go out to my dehydrated indoor roses.

Success! I double bucketed this very special Azalea. She was treading water half the time I was gone.

Hot Tip: If your kids are in charge of indoor watering be sure you own a lot of Moth Orchids. Awfully hard to kill 'em...

The Latest Conspiracy Theory

African Violets add cheery color to this depressing house of illness.

"You have iron deficiency anemia."

So sayeth the frustrated doctor who only sees me when I'm on my self-diagnosed death bed. After I've exhausted all efforts to heal myself ~ a credo that almost always gets me into trouble.

Polka Dot Moth Orchids are winding down.

I don't know why I'm so allergic to doctors. Perhaps because their ideas for a speedy recovery rarely sync with my own.

"Relax, keep quiet, take your pills, get strong again."

Indoor seedlings stretch toward the sun.

So, I did what I was told. (A first!) I laid quietly on the couch, watching Days of Our Lives, in high hopes they'd spot the obvious clues and quickly solve the disappearance of poor baby Sydney. Think time drags when you're under the weather? It moves considerably slower in a soap opera.

That got me thinking that fresh air was precisely what the doctor forgot to order.

Off to Round Valley, where Bad Dog and I took a short jaunt along a favorite trail. 

Savoring the unmistakable signs that spring is right around the corner.

When we came home, the stiffness kicked in. Not me, him. By the following morning my beloved Bad Dog could barely move. Off to another doctor to see what's what.

"He needs to relax, keep quiet, take his pills, get strong again."

And, that's when it happened. The breakdown. The tears. The devout belief that everyone and everything is conspiring against me.

Blubbering, weepy Kate cried like a fool right in front of Dr. Dreamy.

Bad Dog and I are falling apart at the seams. My faithful companion agrees that Days of Our Lives is a sad way to waste an afternoon.

Whatever shall we do?

Cabin Fever and the Obligatory Countdown

 

The difference between cabin fever and a healthy outlook 

towards winter often hinges on your choice of hobbies.

Take Buddy, for instance. His idea of a good time is to watch and wait for the orchids to re-bloom. That takes about 6 months so winter boredom is not an issue for him...

  

I am considerably more productive. 

Not only am I watching the Orchids. 

I'm watching the Azaleas, the Cyclamen.....

And the African Violets, too.

 

And, I'm watching the countdowns. Hard to escape that info! Seems all of my garden buddies have installed cute little counters on their blogs ~ bragging up the fact that spring is just days away.

Which prompted me to create my own little widget. But, after I plugged in all of the pertinent details, and discovered it was still 90 days 'til planting season, I had a huge change of heart. Best to ignore this information. For at least another month, or two. :(

Orchids Celestial

"There are orchids terrestrial and orchids celestial...." So says Mr. Sanders, Britain's most distinguished authority on Orchids (120 years ago.*)

Woman does not live by bread alone. Plentifully garnished baked potatoes, maybe, but definitely not bread.

I marched into the grocery store hell bent on the idea of staying within my bare bones [read: BORING] budget when what should I encounter but an orchid sale. This is hardly fair, I grumbled to myself, as I stood there drooling over those luscious purple petals.

You'd think I could get through the first half of the first month without blowing my budget but no can do!

Meet the new love of my life! Phalaenopsis something or other.

I've always been a little afraid of orchids. Convinced they'd be quite easy to kill. That's why I was digging around online for orchid instructions when I discovered this marvelous article, published by the New York Times in 1888. Click here to read it.

* Orchids celestial.... Mr. Sanders, was talking about my orchid and how it lives in the high tree canopies in it's natural environment. That's what inspired me to haul the pretty girl out onto the deck to let her feel high in the sky, if only for a moment, before it got too cold.