Cymbidium Orchids

February is the time when my cymbidium orchids are starting to bloom and each year I am looking very much forward to this event. They are native to Southeast Asia, but San Diego seems to provide an ideal climate for them to grow and bloom as long as they are watered. Cymbidiums can take temperatures down to 28 degrees  F/-2 degrees C for a brief periode of time and that is exactly as cold as it ever has gotten here, since we bought our property four years ago. So far I only have two varieties (unfortunately I do not know the names of neither one), but I would love to grow more of them in the future.

(you can click on the photos to enlarge)
 

Cymbidiums are available with white, green, pink, yellow, or bronze/brown blooms. Standard cymbidiums can produce 12 or more flowers per flower spike and the individual blooms are 3 to 5 inch tall. They have a light, sweet, exotic fragrance, but nothing to get too excited about.

Flowers of my red variety are emerging on the stems.

Here you can see the developing flower buds on my light green variety. This one seems to want to bloom much later than the red one so no more photos of it for now. It also produces year after year reliably more flower stems per plant in comparison to the red variety.

I grow my cymbidium orchids in terracotta containers outside in a shady location at the North side of the house. Only for the photo shooting my husband carried this pot into the sun. For the soil I use a mixture of orchid bark and simple organic potting soil, since cymbidiums are terrestrial orchids. Usually it is recommended to get special fertilizers formulated for orchids to feed these plants, but the ones that I found in local nurseries were only very high dose chemical fertilizers, which I do not buy because I garden organically. Instead I give my cymbidium orchids organic rose fertilizer in the beginning of the winter to encourage blooms and they seem to do just fine. The rest of the year they get a sip of organic fish and seaweed fertilizer every once in a while. By the way, I counted six flower stems on the one shown in the photo above.

Close-up of a single flower. I am by no means an orchid expert, but what I do think is unusual in terms of this variety is the very dark burgundy inner part of the bloom in comparison to the much lighter pink outer petals. I got this orchid many years ago from a friend, who is totally into orchids. I think, she choose a particular beautiful cultivator for me as a birthday present. It is so nice to get plants from friends, since they always remind me of them. Thanks Petia!

The blooms last a long time on the plant. They are very good as cut flowers, too, and have there a long vase life as well. Since we had four days of rain in the forecast I cut three flower stems for indoors to save the blooms.

The flowers opened nicely up all the way to the end of the flower stems after I cut them and brought them into the warmth of the house. They are now adorning a vintage desk close to our dining room table. It is an interesting visual effect that you get by placing cut flowers in front of a mirror. The reflection of the cymbidium flower stems makes them even look more sumptuous.

At the end another close-up. I just couldn't stop taking pictures of these beauties...

See you in the garden!

Christina

Pruning Roses: Climbing Roses

Today I want to show you how I pruned two of my climbing roses or simply called climbers. This is how they looked in the second week of January 2011. 'Zephirine Drouhin' (Bourbon, Bizot, France, 1868) in the middle and 'Pierre de Ronsard' (Shrub rose, Meilland, France, 1987) on the right. 'Pierre de Ronsard' is also well know under the name 'Eden' or 'Eden Climber'. The rose growing in the big container with the white structure to the left is 'Iceberg', a Shrub rose, but in this post I will only talk about 'Zephirine Drouhin' and 'Pierre de Ronsard' because only these can be grown as climbers. Both roses are 3 - 4 years old. 'Zephirine Drouhin' has grown into a decent size for her age, whereas 'Pierre de Ronsard' is a little bit slow to get going. Just to give you an idea about their size: the fence behind them is 6 feet high. 

(you can click on the photos to enlarge)

How do I prune my climbing roses? First of all my aim is to grow them as freestanding shrubs. I want them to take on a harmonious, balanced, fountain-like shape with as many canes coming from the base of the plant as possible. Another option how you can grow climbers is to train them along a wall, a fence, a pillar etc. In my case I only have to prune the roses, but if you want them to be growing nicely on for example a wall you also have to train the canes in a certain way.

I honestly have to say that I always have shied away from growing a climber on a wall or fence simply because I think it is too much work for me. Since you not only have to prune, but train the canes, which means you have to tie them horizontally to something like a board or a wire each year. Sometimes you even have to loosen canes that you have tied last year and re-do them in a different way for the sake of the overall form of the rose or to cut them off. Besides the work aspect I also feel that climbers grown in a fountain-shape way gives them a very natural look and does not make the impression that you force the rose too much into a shape that a human being wants her to take on. Even though I have to admit that I have seen gorgeously trained climbers to walls in England, which I liked a lot. But these garden had a staff of gardeners, who did the work.

 
Here is a close-up of 'Zephirine Drouhin' before pruning.

'Zephirine Drouhin' after pruning.




To get started first I unfortunately have to de-leave the rose, which is more work than the pruning itself, since the Southern California climate is so warm that the roses don't loose the leaves by themselves as it would happen when there would be frost. I always dread that, but there is no way around, because you simply can not see the canes and the structure of the climber, if the rose is still fully closed in leaves. Then I take out the old canes that have not been so productive any more, which means they didn't produce that many blooms last year. I remove also all diseased, damaged, and dead canes. After that I cut back the tip of each canes until it is at least pencil thick. That makes sure that the cane is able to produce blooms of a decent size up to the end of it. After that I cut back all the laterals (side branches emerging from a cane) up to two to three bud eyes. This encourages blooms along the hole length of a cane.


And here is a close-up of 'Pierre de Ronsard'.

And that is how 'Pierre de Ronsard' looks after it is pruned.




If you would prune a climber grown along a wall etc. you would prune it exactly the same way, but after the pruning you have to tie the canes horizontally to wires (that you hopefully have put in place before you planted the climbing rose). The rose should take on a shape like a fan to get as many blooms as possible.


'Zephirine Drouhin' and 'Pierre de Ronsard' after they got their hair cut. Looking pretty bare, huh?




Zephirine Drouhin's canes are relatively pliable in comparison to 'Pierre de Ronsard's, which canes are much more stiff and upright. By the way 'Zephirine Drouhin' has hardly any thorns, whereas 'Pierre de Ronsard' prickles are sharp like knives. The latter has drawn quite some blood from me while pruning, even though I wear gloves. For safety reasons when I prune big roses I always wear goggles to protect my eyes. I hate doing that, but to me it is not worth to take the risk to get poked into the eye by a rose thorn.

The way I explained and showed to you, you prune repeatedly blooming climbers, which my 'Zephirine Drouhin' and 'Pierre de Ronsard' are. If you have a once blooming climber you let the rose flower in spring and prune only after the rose has bloomed, since these roses bloom on old wood. Otherwise you would prune all the wood of that will produce the flowers.


Here you can see all three roses after pruning.

This photo was taken two days ago, roughly four weeks after pruning the climbers. You can clearly see that 'Zephirine Drouhin' has started to leave out, whereas 'Pierre de Ronsard' looks almost unchanged. I have no other explanation for the difference in the new growth occurring on the roses other than it must depending on the rose variety, because the roses have been pruned at the same time and get the same amount of water. None of the roses is fertilized, yet. 

This close-up of a cane of 'Zephirine Drouhin' beautifully shows how the laterals are starting to grow. On all these side branches 'Zephirine Drouhin' will produce its very fragrant clear pink flowers. I love the look of the new dark burgundy foliage!

I am almost completely done with rose pruning in my garden, now it is time to fertilize the roses. But this is a topic for another post...

Can't wait for the spring flush. 

See you in the garden!

Christina

Forcing Bulbs

This year I am not able to plant annuals to welcome spring in the garden, because I am so much behind with chores like pruning the roses, cleaning up the garden, mulching and fertilizing all the plants that are needing it. But of course I am longing for some fresh spring green, color, and blooms. So I thought to myself I will give forcing bulbs indoors a try. I have some mixed results.  

(you can click on the photos to enlarge)

 

I tried to force three Paperwhites (Narcissus tazetta) bulbs in Hyacinth forcing glasses. Only two out of the three started to thrive and one very belated. But when the two of them were finally flowering they have been very pretty and the fragrance... Oh my gosh, it is almost too strong. We have an open floor plan in the first story, so the scent got diffused because the rooms are relatively big, but in a small closed bed room it would have been certainly too much.

I also tried to force blue and white Hyacinths. Like the label said that came with them, I chilled them in the fridge for about four or five weeks. Then I put the white ones in forcing glasses and they never got really started. Although I have to say that l even like the way the plain white Hyacinth bulbs look in the glasses!

The blue Hyacinth bulbs I planted with regular organic potting soil in a ceramic container and they came out nicely. Their fragrance is incredible strong and very pleasant to me. Since the blue Hyacinths are thriving in a pot, I think, I will take the white ones out of the forcing glasses and plant them in a container, too. I am curious if they will start to grow then.

Last but not least I got an Amaryllis bulb for my birthday from a dear friend. It came as a kit with a ceramic planter without a drainage hole and coco fiber growing medium. Even though I have my doubts if you can provide the bulb with the right amount of humidity in the pot without drowning it and letting it dry out too much I planted it as instructed and will see what happens.

So far the bulb has actively started to grow and it looks like it will produce two flower stalks. It is not very clear to see on the photo, but the leaves are coming out in the middle of the bulb and to the right and left the flower stalks emerge.

 

My conclusion so far is that it was/is fun to force bulbs indoors in winter and I would do it certainly again next year, but I think I have to read up a little bit more about how to do this to have a higher success rate. I just placed all the bulbs in the living and dining room areas, where you can see them on the photos. I believe that if you work more with temperature control and provide them with light conditions that are closer to their liking the bulbs might be easier to start. Also for me it looks that Paperwhites and Hyacinths are more likely to come up when they are planted in soil, in comparison to when you use a forcing glass. But of course these conclusions are only based on the observations of very few bulbs so they can not be generalized.  

 

I really enjoy the little splashes of fresh green from the emerging bulbs in the middle of a white, cream and neutral color scheme in our dining room area. 

See you in the garden!

Christina