My latest so-called disaster occured today, when I snapped a multi-branched
spike off of a multi-spiked Phal that was destined to go to a show next
week. The flowers were so perfect - I had high hopes, but alas, the spike
sits in a cruet of water, and the rest of the flowers will never make it
out.

That is not the worst thing that can happen, so I'm going to share one that
happened to some friends two days ago. We've had a lot of wind down here in
south FL, and Monday night/Tuesday morning brought a big time blow. We, as
our friends, live on a "greenbelt", which simply means a 100' minor canal.
In our case there is a lot of brush and many trees, so we have a bit of a
wind break. The rain was blowing so hard that we'd moved the Phals under
more cover to prevent them from getting soaked overnight. But none of us
anticipated how hard the winds would blow.

Still, at 5AM we were up and listening to the wind. Suddenly, we heard that
awful "train's coming" tornado sound, and we were prepared to hit the
walk-in closet with the cat, but it died down. At 5:45 we were outside, and
the only damage we incurred was to an Oncidium which fell from a pot clip.
Didn't even snap its spikes.

Our friends, on the other hand, who have a showplace that includes a pond,
meandering paths, orchids much more mature than ours (many specimens), etc,
were not so lucky. There green belt is completely open. The winds blew
through there, knocking over their Vanda support stand and snapping several
plants, kicking over an award winning Dendrobium, really wreaking havoc.
Judy recounted how she called to her husband, "Save the show plants
first!!". She said the entire area was covered with "orchid bits". Today,
she is calmer, and it's not as bad as it seemed, but they really sustained
some damage.

Scary.

Diana