Hello from the Inland Northwest, USA

[fishsqueezer]

I've been into houseplants most of my life, especially aroids and succulents/cacti. In the last few years I've started getting into Hoya, but I had never gotten into orchids beyond grocery store moth orchids. But in the last couple years during the COVID houseplant boom, somehow a few new genera of orchid crept their way into my house.

My collection is not as large as I would like because I have too many kids and not enough room to get over my impostor syndrome. I'm a big fan of fragrance, so I generally choose those species and cultivars. I accidentally made the mistake of thinking I should figure out the care and cultivation of the founding species before I started collecting hybrids, without knowing that species are often harder to care for! So I've made some mistakes and killed some plants, but learned a lot. Winter overwatering is a problem for me.

So far I have bloomed:
Brassavola nodosa 'Grace'
Brassavola cucullata
Dendrobium kingianum
Dendrobium nobile hybrid
Oncidium 'Sharry Baby' (currently blooming)
Oncidium sotoanum
Phalaenopsis NOID
Phalaenopsis violaceae coerulea
Rhipidoglossum xanthopollinium
Zygopetalum NOID

This year I hope to see blooms for the first time from:
Cyrtorchis chailluana
Dendrobium anosmum
Dendrobium thyrsiflorum
Encyclia tampensis
Lc. 'Sagarik Wax' "African Beauty" x Blc. 'Cherry Suisse' "Kauai"
Maxillaria tenuifolia
Miltoniopsis 'Morris Chestnut'
Phalaenopsis bellina
Phalaenopsis schillereana
Phalaenopsis sanderiana
Vanda NOID

Plants that I have that are barely clinging to life about which I would be happy to receive advice:
Laelia lilliputiana
Schoenorchis fragrans

So far I have murdered:
Dendrophylax lindenii (twice - this will be my holy grail orchid someday)
Haraella retrocalla
Neofinetia falcata
Paphiopedilum
Phals (lots of times)
Pleione

I was extremely lucky last fall to acquire mature specimens of both Dendrobium kingianum and Dendrobium nobile (possibly a hybrid), which both bloomed wonderfully for me.




Now that I've (hopefully) introduced myself in a satisfactory way, I'm off to bug people about orchids. Thanks for reading!

Colton (fishsqueezer)