And so it blooms...

Time for some new spring growth I guess... Along with my new blog comes new blooms on my kitchen window orchid. I think I got this one almost two years ago? Got it at 50% off a Pettiti's Nursery just down the street from us - looked beautiful and I wanted to take on another challenge after having so much luck with my $5 Walmart orchid. If I remember correctly, this'll be the third set of blooms from this orchid.


I have three orchids total - the $5 Walmart one, this one, and then the super fancy one Brett's brother Blake got me for Christmas a year and a half ago. The one Blake got me had two stalks FULL of purple blooms - each bloom had a shiny little center to it, and they smelled of chocolate! The tag just said 'Shary Baby' - a little web searching said that this was a chocolate orchid (hence the smell!).

So far the chocolate orchid has been my biggest disappointment - it was so exciting to receive, but it hasn't done anything since. I burned it a little out in the sun last summer, and it's since gotten root bound. So this weekend I decided it was time to try repotting an orchid for the first time. I had all the stuff, and as I began to wrestle with it (cutting off all the dead, bound up roots to free the still-growing ones) it started to kind of flop open in my hands. All the "fleshy leaves" (the based of the plant) that were crammed into the pot sort of opened up in such a way that there was an obvious dividing spot. So some more wrestling (and hopefully not too much bruising of the plant) left me with not one chocolate orchid, but TWO! Good thing I had plenty of potting medium.

Heck, after that I decide to repot the $5 orchid that's been sitting in the kitchen window all this time, growing roots out everywhere (some even took a little of the finish off the wood cabinets!) So now I've got three repotted orchids - if they survive after my man-handling, I may repot the one that's blooming now once it goes dormant again. Fingers' crossed!