A change of season
 

Xmas is over, I got gifts for everybody but myself. This morning Monday, having a free day unexpectedly, I hopped on the bus and headed for my favorite hangout, the down-to-earth (read dark-skinned and bare-footed) Minburi market at the end of the 113 bus line. Luckily the big downtown Chatujak market, where rhys are sold “in heaps” during this season, doesn’t open on Mondays. The temptation there would be too great, besides, this being afterXmas shopping, I didn’t want to get my heart rate up too high.

I must have been feeling lucky, for look at what I’ve got: three young rhys (or is it rhies for plural?) One alba, one spotted pink and one spotted dark red. They each have 2 or 3 new spikes sticking out – for a total of 8 spikes! (The next stall has a bigger selection – and much higher prices – but I will come back and deal with them another day because they have one orange rhys that I’ve been searching high and low for.)

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So now I have my bundle of joy (AND worries) to keep me fretting from (our) New Year to Songkran, the Thai New Year which comes around in April. If I could get each rhys to have one spike in full bloom I will consider this a very good year. Two blooms on each would consider a great, great year. And if 8 spikes all arrive at full bloom I will be in heaven!

A somber footnote: last year’s crop is still with me. None of them has ever bloomed again. They struggle mightily to survive under my care and the environment where they are kept (namely my southwest facing balcony with full afternoon sun) They are too feral looking now (remember the feral kid in Mad Max the road warrior?) so that nobody will want them if I give them away. But they are still fully alive (continuously sprouting new leaves) for me to snuff them out in the trash bag. So both sides keep up the challenge: Life goes on!

Glad you found what you were looking for! And I admire you for wanting more of the same thing that you were not able to bloom yet. Seems your conditions would be ideal so good luck and Happy New Year in April.

Nice!

Thank you DeaC and Sonya for your best wishes... I'll do my best but the prognosis is not good, I think the old rhys will have to go soon and leave their "throne" to the young ones!

In the meantime, in the spirit of New Year I would like to wish all Orchidboard members a new year full of health and good luck while you are or are not tending to your darling "chids."

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(plus a couple of pics taken this morning at the local market for cheers!)

Happy New Year to you as well, and thank you for the wonderful photos and updates.

You're most welcome, estacion. And thanks for the best wishes. Unfortunately, I seem to be having a problem with uploading pics the last few days. Were going to post a few more new year pics, but the "sending request to orchidboard.com" goes on forever and then "this page can't be opened!"

It happened on both my laptop and pc, and regardless of what browser I was using. So I don't even know what is broken and what to be fixed! :((

ps - I happened upon a few pics of orchids taken in Vietnam in 2013 where I made a short sojourn before coming to Thailand, and those are the pics to be posted next, if only I could!

A sobering ending
 

Well, lemme post a quick follow-up ( or rather a summary of the end of the affair...where was I?) After my initial report of getting a new batch of rhys, I further acquired 3 big beautiful rhys, red, purple and orange/peach supposedly. They came home with thick fat baby spikes snuggling tantalizingly among their big fat leaves. Well, cut to the chase, I toasted them all, the new ones and the old ones ( all 6 of them) having left them uncovered on my balcony one broiling sun blasted afternoon while I was busy (and forgetful) having fun at a newly discovered weekend market.

I came home and found them not yet fried to a crisp, I thought the orchid god had given my one last reprieve. Little did I know that most of the spikes had gotten stunted. They looked ok from the outside but it was only a slow and painful spectacle of death that took its time to unfold. The final tally was that out of a total of about twenty spikes, I harvested 4 blooms, one fine, the other three sickly like prematured babies. The big rhys that had aborted their bloom quickly sprouted new leaves, I guess all that pent-up energy had gotten to find an outlet somewhere!

I gave them all away (to the mango tree owner friend), except for the purple and peach ones simply because their spikes all got aborted and I was determined to see them bloom (sometime in my lifetime...) I felt so dejected that I didn't even bother to go to the "rhys on heaps" market this year to make new rhys "flower-arrangements" that I had waited all year for. It was all my fault I know, they cried for joy when I put them in the bathroom, and moaned of despair when I was determined to hang them out in the hot balcony so that they could "get ripened" (that was what went through my mind) .

Some where along this excruciating journey I stumbled upon a cute little mokara. It was its intoxicating fragrance (a cross between coppertone suntan oil and citrus hair pommade) that made me take it home after I was intrigued by its perfectly form chocolaty yellow bloom with thick plasticky petals.
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The vendor also promised that this orchid will bloom several times a year, which makes it easier to live with. Still all this added up to make me feel like a brazenly stupefied middle aged man after one too many failed marriages :(

Get back on the wagon and don't lose the desire to be the great grower that lies within. Those orchids would not be doable in my home situation,if that's any comfort. Think that Mokara is gonna be spoiled!

Beautiful flower. You can do it.

Sorry been absent(-minded) this week somewhat due to the event in Bruxelles. Living the expat life (I'm reminded of that every time they wipe my membership card at the supermarket check out stand, there in bold english, below my name is listed the membership category: M- expat), one is keenly aware of the fluctuating currents of the global political climate. Last year, Bangkok itself got on the unfortunately list of geopolitical hotspots where international terrorism has struck with the bombing of the Erawan shrine in downtown...

I just wanted to thank everyone here for your compliment/encouragement. As long as I live in this part of the world, (the vibrant landscape of which simply makes modern-day Bruxelles look like something out of the 60s Soviet-era) I will always have something blooming (or trying to bloom) on my balcony. I'm still a beginner not so much in term of growing/maintaining the plants, but in terms of how to live with them or keep them "alive and lively” more than just “alive!”
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The Mokara will be one that I'm willing to take care long term, with the rhys I don't know, they're fabulous looking even without bloom (they always bring to mind the aura of Lara Croft, raider of the lost tomb - or something in that vein) but they are a piece of work no doubt. So II kind of resent being a slave to these guys, where as the mokara seems to be more easy going and puppy like.

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Anyway, to cheer things up, here's a pic of the cannon ball tree on campus. Rock hard inside out, totally dense and totally useless, its fruit looks like a cannon ball, feels like one and weighs like one (a friend in the states thought it was some type of coconut!) The flower when open is of a bleary red and shocking white, resembling at first glance knee surgery!