Tag: orchids

AN IMPRESSIONISTIC ARRAY OF PURPLE ORCHIDS – Marilyn Armstrong

THE DAY OF THE PURPLE ORCHID – 9-17-2019

I just felt like playing with the pictures. I have such a huge array of filters by now, but I rarely do anything playful with the pictures. All of these are definitely playful and mostly, impressionistic.

Mostly, I think I like them. Mostly.

THE NEW LITTLE GARDEN – Marilyn Armstrong

The New Little Garden – 09-13-2019

I wanted a new orchid. To bring in any new plant, I needed someplace to put them. Everything was on a leftover dining chair, a stool. There was one plant stand, but everything else was a piece of something I found somewhere in the house.

Overview

We have a dining room table that folds into three pieces, so it can be a relatively small table pushed against the wall or opened all the way, seat 8 people comfortably. When Garry brought home the new orchid, there was no more putting it off.

We settled for dropping one-third of it and pushing that end against the glass doors. I have been thinking of dropping another third until we need it, but I’m thinking about it. Meanwhile, there’s room for more plants. Not a lot more plants unless I hang some from the ceiling (which I might do).

HAPPENSTANCE JUST HAPPENS – Marilyn Armstrong

RDP Wednesday – HAPPENSTANCE

It has been one of those weeks. We were supposed to go away at the end of the week to celebrate being alive and surviving this year, but happenstance really happened big-time. First, I got sick. I wasn’t sure I was sick until I talked to Cherrie and she had the same thing and then Garry came down with it. I guess that means I had something. It’s one of those stomach things, so it will go away pretty quickly (usually they only last a few days), so I’m not going running to the doctor for something that’s just “going around.”

As it happened, one of the people we would be have been visiting has to be in the hospital soon. People with contagious things don’t go visiting people who are having surgery soon. It’s just … well … rude. Unhealthy, too.

Then there’s the wall of the house. As concerned as I am about getting the insurance company to throw a few dollars our way (ONE year’s payment of our home insurance bill would more than cover the issue and we’ve been paying for a long, long time — 19 years on this house and 10 on the previous one — but they don’t “pay.” They collect.

Garry and Karin MacMillan

On the upside, Karin — who we were going to be visiting but now aren’t — dropped by this morning with her business partner and Garry got to jabber a bit and it was fun to actually have company. She commented that this is a really lovely area — which it really is. It’s a gorgeous area despite the terrible weather we’ve been having.

Owen then came over and put a new pillar under the back deck. The pillar is on cement, so it isn’t going to sink. It used to be attached to the house, but the attachment came loose. Propping it up seemed a better deal than getting a new deck. That’s a few thousand dollars and basically, there’s nothing wrong with this deck except that it has come unhitched from the house. Now, with a double-strong wooden pillar propping up that corner, it is unlikely to go anywhere. And he got the job done in under two hours. Go, Owen!

I’m still trying to get hold of the contractor. It’s a busy — SUPER busy — season for contractors. Not only is everyone desperate to get something fixed before winter drops by, but it’s hunting season. Big time. And contractors have an odd way of drifting away even when they are in the middle of a job. So I want him to come, but I have to cajole and coddle him. Can I bribe him with cookies?

And yesterday, because how loud can anyone hint before someone else gets the message, Garry bought me a brilliant purple orchid. Which meant rearranging the dining room by pushing the table against the French doors. We can use it as a sideboard if we are serving and everyone can drift off to eat wherever they are most comfy. And my flowers look so much better.

As it happens, happenstance won my day. I happened to have a new coffee machine because the old one croaked and new flowers to dream about. Garry feels a little better than yesterday and I don’t feel any worse, which is something.

ALL FOUR ORCHIDS, STILL BLOOMING – Marilyn Armstrong

Flower of the Day – Orchids

It’s kind of amazing, but the orchids are still blooming. No sign of wilting. They look brand new. So I figured I should take some pictures since I had the camera in my hand.

Orchids!
More orchid … okay, the same orchids. Different shot.

SERRIED ORCHIDS ON A STALK – Marilyn Armstrong

RDP # 33: Serried

Well. Now here’s a word I’ve never used.

Never even heard it, actually. Nonetheless, it’s not a bad word for a group of flowers on a stem.

Rather like my orchids, for example. Oh, I haven’t talked about the orchids lately, but they are still blooming.

No new ones (no new buds), but looking remarkably hardy. Orchids are nothing if not sturdy flowers.

So, here are some serried orchids for your consideration.

REJUVENATION AND THE FINAL ORCHID – Marilyn Armstrong

RDP #24 -REJUVENATE
Two of four
Getting the color right is the hardest part. The petals are so translucent, they pick up any other strong color nearby.

We were away for a few days. Three, arriving home late on that final day. It would have been earlier but it was Friday and it was rush hour and the first weekend of summer. Everybody was on the road and it was a slow road home.

All four!
Three of four

But for all that, it was good getting home. It was good because all the flowers were blooming like crazy and, this morning, my fourth orchid opened up.

Four orchids, all in a row
It’s a duplicate with a small tone change. Using more red to catch the purple heart in the flower.

This was the last bud, so I assume this will be the final flower of this set. I’m sure no one is surprised I took a lot of pictures.  All of these are macros.

Will these rejuvenate again next spring? I hope so. I was just delighted that they bloomed. After the long, hard winter, this was such a wonderful surprise!

A THIRD ORCHID AND STILL EXCITED ABOUT FLOWERS – Marilyn Armstrong

ORCHIDS – PLANT OF THE DAY

I’ve been watching for a new orchid. Every day I check. Did another bud open yet? Today, there it was. The third flower is in bloom.

I got all excited. I was going to go take pictures, but it turned out to be four o’clock which is the dog’s dinner time, so I had to stop and feed them. As soon as they finished choking down the food — they really eat as if no one ever feeds them — I grabbed two cameras. First, the OMD with the macro lens and the tiny Pentax Q with its fast “normal lens.

It was a bright day and I hoped I’d have enough light to get clean shots with the macro. The Pentax Q was my fallback position.

“I’m so excited,” I told Garry. “I didn’t use to get excited about plants.”I stopped when I said that because I realized I was lying. When I lived in New York, my whole first floor looked like a greenhouse. I had hundreds of plants. Hanging and standing. Tall and flat. And they were literally everywhere you looked.

I had special stands made on which to put the plants in which I could put water so the heat from the radiators would turn to mist and keep them from drying out. People I didn’t know would leave me cuttings on my porch. I was, in fact, know as “The Plant Lady” unless it was someone to whom I had given a cat or dog, in which case I was the cat or dog lady.

To say I didn’t get excited about plants was an out-and-out lie. No one who doesn’t get excited about plants grows a few hundred of them indoors.

“Okay,” I said, having rethought my original statement. “I guess I do get excited about plants.”

Garry remembers the house on Dikeman Street. I didn’t have curtains. The plants covered the windows in every room on the ground floor. I had a miniature hose which attached to my kitchen faucet so I could water them in a couple of hours.

I had started out with maybe three plants, but there were clippings and the arboretum had a sale. And people gave me plants. Cuttings. Ferns.

And all I did was water them when they got dry and make sure they got a reasonable amount of light. When I left for Israel, I had to give away my plants. I had one hanging fern that was about five feet around. I gave to friends as a wedding present. They looked puzzled. A fern? A gigantic fern?

“Water it when it gets dry and be sure it gets light. It doesn’t need full sun, just light.” I have no idea what happened to it because the next day, I was on a plane to Israel where I had to rethink my plant choices. The balcony on which I grew my plants, was on the south side of the house. It got hot, semi-tropical sun from mid-morning until dark. Most plants fried in that kind of sunshine.

It turned out the only plants that could cope with it were petunias, hanging geraniums — which have simply got to be the most versatile plants available — and cactus. Everything else burned to a crisp.

So here I am, 41 years later. I still get excited about plants. I don’t have as many of them — indoors, just a half-dozen. I don’t have the energy to maintain a huge indoor greenhouse. Moreover, we don’t have enough light to grow most of the plants I grew in those less golden olden days.

If Renoir lived here …

I did get a third blossom on the orchids, though. That makes up for a lot, even if my outdoor garden is a terrible mess.

I am expecting one more flower in about a week.