Claude,

I noticed the same thing. It has been very quiet. I don't know why others
have been quiet (although wasn't there supposed to be some big orchid
related event that a whole bunch of our regulars were going to? could that
be why they are not here?), as for myself I have been exceedingly busy at
work (and continue to be so), I have lots of deadlines and I have been
putting in 10 hour days at work. However, even with that, I have still been
checking the newsgroups regularly, but have not had much energy to post.

Here is what has been happening on the orchid front in my life:

Just to show how much of an orchid addict I am: One of the priest at the
Episcopal church we go to has a daughter who turned 5 recently. The birthday
party was last Saturday, and I thought "Hmm, what do I get a 5 year old ...
I will buy her an orchid!" I know, I must be nuts. In my defense I knew that
this girl likes flowers, and that she had been visiting the US Botanical
Gardens regularly with her parents looking at the orchid exhibit, and that
she had been talking with her parents about how Joanna has orchids. I
consulted with her mother beforehand, who thought it was a good idea. I got
a really impressive looking No-ID Phal for her, with 4.5 inch pink flowers
with 4 flowers open and 5 more buds. The little girl liked it a lot, and she
petted its leaves, and the orchid has been nicknamed "Pink Panther".

The cochleanthes amazonica is still in bud and the bud is bigger than ever
before, no signs of blasting this time (knock on wood). I am now as sure as
I can be that the humidity was the culprit behind all the bud blasting.
Apparently unlike Phals, cochleanthes are not tolerant when it comes to
humidity. The weather in DC is starting to get more humid now on some days,
but it is not predictable enough, so we have been running a humidifier
constantly right next to the plant. Our old humidifier broke, and we had to
go buy another one quickly, and it turned out that most stores no longer
carry humidifiers at this time of year in the Washington DC area -- they
have dehumidifiers instead -- but we found one, and so far so good.

Most of my Phals are busily growing new leaves, and several are already on
the second leaf for this year :-) The blooming Phals continue to be
gorgeous, and I am beginning to look forward to the summer bloomers (a few
Dtps, and one phal bellina -- hopefully they will reflower, none of them
have been with me long enough, so I do not know yet whether they like these
conditions enough to do so.

That's all that has been going on here. How about you, how are you and your
orchids doing?

Joanna

"PhalGuy" wrote in message
s.com...
Hello everyone!

Is it me or it`s been very quiet here this week?
Maybe, we all are busy with spring cleaning, repotting, etc....


--
Claude

www.picturetrail.com/phalguy

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