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damaclese
06-12-2008, 11:11 AM
here is an article the president of the Lv orchid society rote for orchid digest i thought is was interesting

Chironex
04-18-2009, 08:07 PM
Any orchid fans out there?

Michael_Andrew
04-18-2009, 08:41 PM
Well, I like vanilla.

saltydad
04-18-2009, 10:08 PM
Any orchid fans out there?

I'm a budding orchid grower; I have around 8 plants now..

Chironex
04-18-2009, 11:07 PM
You and Pauly should chat. He is into them big time. I just look at them and say, nice orchid. No desire to grow any.

Moonshiner
04-19-2009, 04:13 AM
I started growing orchids 2 years ago. As bad an addiction as most of you banana growers, and more varieties to choose from!

damaclese
04-19-2009, 08:42 AM
Love them have to have them and way easer to grow in Las Vegas then Bananas i have a nice unknown Slipper Orchid in bloom right now so pretty to look at

Moonshiner
04-19-2009, 12:17 PM
Love them have to have them and way easer to grow in Las Vegas then Bananas i have a nice unknown Slipper Orchid in bloom right now so pretty to look at


So post a pic, let us look at it!

Tog Tan
04-19-2009, 12:46 PM
Paulo, I am an ex orchid addict now purged but still have lots of them growing naturally in my nursery. I still collect the weird ones especially the terrestials. Paphiopedilums were my fav, I had 12,000 plts once and my worker killed most of them due to negligence.
I am basically a species collector and still have many of the stauro type Phalaenopsis, vanda, bulbophyllum and at least 200+ other species.

Here's a pix of my Variegated Vanilla aphylla which is wild collected. Sorry, no flower!
<a href=http://www.bananas.org/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=16747><img src=http://www.bananas.org/gallery/watermark.php?file=16747&size=1 border=0></a>

Chironex
04-19-2009, 12:55 PM
Now you know why I won't let myself get interested in orchids. I spend too much money and time on bananas.

mskitty38583
04-19-2009, 01:00 PM
i have one vanila bean plant...and im happy to say it is doing well. i have it in the den with the nannas and water and feed it when i do the nanas. it is doing better then my tiger ginger is doing. my cats have shredded my ginger. time to kill the cats! i think they are worse then the frakkin squirrles if they are in the house!

Chironex
04-19-2009, 01:04 PM
Oh no! Is that the one I sent to you? As grandpa used to say, "time to get out the sock." (When there were excess cats on the farm, he would shove one or more cats into a nylon stocking, tie a knot in the open end and then throw it into the pond. He would probably be in jail these days, but that's how it was done back then.

mskitty38583
04-19-2009, 01:11 PM
lol! go granpa......yes its one i got from you....i did put some mothballs in the pot and they havent messed with it anymore....that and the friendly water squirt bottle. lol. i have a few leaves left and if it does die so will the cat that ate part of it.

saltydad
04-19-2009, 05:19 PM
I had a large philo in a larger pot years ago. My sister-in-law (a veterinarian) left her cat with us for 3 months while she did a fellowship, and the cat, Kolya, kept using the philo pot as a litter box. Finally a forest of very sharp pencils kept him out of there!

D_&_T
04-19-2009, 11:40 PM
been checking into a vanilla orchid, any tricks to growing them?

damaclese
04-20-2009, 08:16 AM
been checking into a vanilla orchid, any tricks to growing them?

Vanilla planifolia or more commonly known as Madagascar-Bourbon Vanilla is Vary easy to grow no direct sunlight high humidity keep most not wet most grow them in a bath room they clime and get vary long 100 ft (you can clip to keep under control) takes 3 years to flower theirs a trick for pollinating them must be done by hand
in the wild it was thought to be by a Mexican Bee Melipona (possibly extinct)but now we know Euglossine bees, and perhaps by long-billed hummingbirds. The common fast-flying Euglossa viridissima is one probable pollinator;
Eulaema cingulata is also suspected.
a 12-year-old French-owned slave by the name of Edmond Albius, who lived on Īle Bourbon, discovered the plant could be hand pollinated in the 1840s
you have approx 6hr to do the polination Beens take approx 9 months to ripen
after beens are mature harvest dip in boiling water for 15 seconds place in ventilated wooden box open box ever morning close every night for 7 to 9 months use as you see fit incidentally the flower and been have no vanilla sent at all the sent comes from a complexes set of chemicals that develop in the curing process
this is why the culinary industry has decided to use artificial Vanilla
but! the real stuff is the best the fake stuff comes from an extraction from a certain pine tree which i do not recall the name of although Vanilla comes from Mexico its is grown world wide but the main countries of production are in Malaysia and Madagascar the hand pollinating takes grate amounts of time which is quite labor intensive making it fairly unprofitable in most western countries after 2004 it has become the second most exspesiv spice in the world do to a hurricane that wiped out the majority of the plantations in the producing regions of the world
if any one wants a more in depth report on Vanilla planifolia id be more then happy to give a longer out line but for now i didn't want to boar any one

mskitty38583
04-20-2009, 09:06 AM
pauly....you dont bore me.

damaclese
04-20-2009, 09:07 AM
pauly....you dont bore me.

well i could go on if you would like its a fascinating plant and the only orchid in the world that is consumed by humans

mskitty38583
04-20-2009, 09:11 AM
you have the floor....

damaclese
04-20-2009, 09:20 AM
here is some additional info in the group of Orchids known as vanilla

According to Dr. Ken Cameron, New York Botanical Garden's specialist on vanilla orchids, Vanilla is just one genus of an ancient orchid subfamily known as Vanilloideae. The entire orchid family, Orchidaceae,
is classified within the flowering plant order Asparagales, a diverse group of plants that include asparagus, amaryllises, irises, onion, agaves and yuccas.
By using DNA to build evolutionary trees, Dr. Cameron and colleagues have shown that the vanilloid orchids represent one of the first branches to emerge out of the orchid family, and thus out of Asparagales as
well, which means that they may have evolved as long as 90 million years ago. Vanilla has some primitive aspects that make it different from most other orchids. A characteristic of the Asparagales order is a seed encased in a black, crusty coat. Vanilla does not have the tiny, microscopic seeds
typical of most orchids; its seeds have a black, rough coat like the seeds released from the fronds of a mature asparagus. In addition, vanilla is both an epiphyte and a terrestrial orchid. Its vine needs other plants for support,
yet its roots trail along the forest floor and penetrate the soil. Only two species of vanilla are used commercially—Vanilla planifolia (syn. Vanilla fragrans) and Vanilla pompona Schiede. A third, grown in Tahiti, Vanilla tahitensis, is believed to have been created by crossing V. planifolia
and V. pompona in a laboratory in Manila in the 1700s, although there is some confusion on this point. Most commercial vanilla is produced from Vanilla planifolia, indigenous to Central America and Southeast Mexico.

Tog Tan
04-20-2009, 10:17 AM
well i could go on if you would like its a fascinating plant and the only orchid in the world that is consumed by humans

Very nice info on the Vanilla, Paulo. Thanks.

Out of the interest of orchid being consumed, fyi, the Plalaenopsis amabilis from the Indon islands is eaten by the locals there. They cut the leaves and cook it like a vegie! Probably taste like cabbage, I think. :ha:

lorax
04-20-2009, 10:18 AM
Very much like cabbage - we eat Phal leaves here, too.

Tog Tan
04-20-2009, 10:23 AM
Very much like cabbage - we eat Phal leaves here, too.

Where did the people learn to do it? It doesn't come from your part of the world. Do the people eat other local orchids?

lorax
04-20-2009, 10:48 AM
We do, actually. The flowers of Sobralia species, as well as Cattleya maxima, are considered to be good salad (I'll agree on the Sobralia, which taste of vanilla, but I find Cattleya to be very bitter). The leaves of Epidendrum are also edible steamed, although these are more spinachy. The roots of various species of Odontoglossum are sought-after as medicinals for rheumatism; they're decocted into alcohol and then drunk. Haven't tried this, but apparently it's very effective.

john_ny
04-20-2009, 04:01 PM
We've spent several getaways at a friend's vacation house, in St. lucia. One of the locals, who cut the grass, etc., for our friend, had some clearings, out in the jungle, where he kept sheep and goats tethered. I told him to be on the lookout for some plants for me, and Iwould pay him, when he went out to tend the animals. One day, he came back with a great big vine looped over his shoulder. It was a vanilla orchid, and it was about 40 feet. I found I could root it from cuttings, so we cut it up, and made about 70 plants from it.
I have never had one flower, but I did see one in bloom, at Longwood Gardens, the former DuPont estate, near Philadelphia. From what I can remember, the flower was not very impressive and, I've heard, flowers last a very short time, unlike most other orchids.

damaclese
04-22-2009, 08:15 AM
Very nice info on the Vanilla, Paulo. Thanks.

Out of the interest of orchid being consumed, fyi, the Phalaenopsis amabilis from the Indon islands is eaten by the locals there. They cut the leaves and cook it like a vegie! Probably taste like cabbage, I think. :ha:

Tog i was under the inpretion that almost all orchids to some dreg have toxic chemicals in there cells so you all may in-fact eat other types of orchids but it doesn't mean they are good for you some how i just do not want to eat my Phalaenopsises Leafs looking at my Orchids the are all old and some what smelly looking so all pass the Phal Leafs on to the next guy at the table of life LOL

lorax
04-22-2009, 08:16 AM
Pauly, if you cook them well then the toxicity goes away. Just like Taro, Manioc, etc etc.

damaclese
04-22-2009, 08:47 AM
well I'm still going to pass but thanks for the info all tell are orchid society about the eating of phals

Tog Tan
04-23-2009, 08:24 AM
Oh Paulo, forgot to add, there's dendrobium species from China sold as a dried herb in the Chinese herbal pharmacies for some kind of ailment. Thought it might interest you. :ha:

damaclese
04-23-2009, 05:52 PM
Oh Paulo, forgot to add, there's dendrobium species from China sold as a dried herb in the Chinese herbal pharmacies for some kind of ailment. Thought it might interest you. :ha:

Yes can you find out the species and details about what they use it for? Maybe all wright and article for Orchid Digest on the medicinal properties of Orchids

Tog Tan
04-24-2009, 02:02 AM
Yes can you find out the species and details about what they use it for? Maybe all wright and article for Orchid Digest on the medicinal properties of Orchids

Ok, Paulo, I will get my sis to get a sample and speak to the Chinese pharmacy people cos she knows them well. I will try to ID it and get all the info you need. Gimme awhile to do it, k...

damaclese
04-24-2009, 11:18 AM
Ok, Paulo, I will get my sis to get a sample and speak to the Chinese pharmacy people cos she knows them well. I will try to ID it and get all the info you need. Gimme awhile to do it, k...
only if its not a big deal i don't want you to go to any trubal i thought perhaps you know the info already

Tog Tan
04-24-2009, 11:27 AM
only if its not a big deal i don't want you to go to any trubal i thought perhaps you know the info already

No big deal Paulo, it's something I have taken for granted as it has been around as a herb since I was a kid. I get stuff from the normal pharmacy but not the Chinese ones so I don't know the blokes there. My sis goes there for all sorts of stuff. Don't worry, no probs. Anything for a friend! :ha:

On the other hand, that place has pickled snakes, dried toads, dried huge gecko, sea horse, sea dragons and God knows what else as herbs. I was always amazed by them when I was little.