My name is Karma. I live in Gothenburg, Sweden and work professionally as an Art Director in advertising. I am passionate about growing orchids, and do my best to do it well in a 2 bedroom flat...
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 They may say that one who is waiting for something good can never wait too long… but I am starting to feel the time crunch now… I have a lot of plants coming from Peru in a few weeks and I am nowhere near ready for them. I have ordered a lot of gear for the new cool vivarium, but two weeks have passed and only about half has arrived. The viv. has been standing like an empty gaping hole for weeks…! Ok, so I am known for my patience… he he…
I actually did make some headway this week. First of all I really wanted to seal the bottom of the vivarium so it would not leak once I crank up the incoming rain system. First I tried using a hot glue gun since everyone kept telling me silicone won’t not stick to plastic or aluminum. Well, I have news for you… neither will hot glue!! It sticks to just about everything – except aluminum. I knew regular silicone probably would not stick either. So I got the meanest, strongest silicone glue I could find. Superfix. It said it would stick to anything, so far it looks like it might have worked. Ok, I know it won’t win any beauty contests, but as long as it holds water I am happy.
I also picked up the new glass for the top. I decided to have it split it into two pieces since trying to handle a 65×175cm large piece of glass really would be a pain – specially hauling it home on the tram. Luckily mom came into town and I could borrow her car for an hour.
Two huge packages did arrive from Dusk in Stockholm in time for the weekend, mainly loaded with the EpiWeb I am planning to cover the insides with. I had really hoped I could have finished mounting all the EpiWeb (including applying the moss mixture) this weekend. But I did not get all the pieces I needed, so I did as much as I could. That included hand-sawing the huge panels into to the correct sizes with a hacksaw blade – I’ve got several blisters to show for it, but it did turn out great.
            
I’ve heard of some people using silicone to attach the wall material inside their viv’s, but I wanted to install mine so I can take them back down again if I need to. So, dear husband helped me to drill the holes and we used large carriage bolts to hang the EpiWeb with. Good thing the back wall is made from double walled polycarbonate, makes for easy drilling. For the sides panels we used the existing air holes for the bolts. First I had planned to put the wingnut on the inside so I could more easily get to it, but I did not like the look. So we turned the bolts around, and I like it much better.
At least I feel like the project is finally moving forward again. The epic wall is built! The panels are in, but they bow out a little bit and since I will adding even more weight to them mounting plants, I think I will get a few more bolts in further down just in case. I am also going to add a few EpiWeb branches to the back wall (still coming in the mail), and also plant (ehm smear) on the tropical moss mixture. But more on this later.
 …Ok… rhyming is not my strength… so we’ll move right along. The first bud on my Paphiopedilum Ho Chi Minh just opened, so now I know it can’t be long until Easter. In the wild the seed parent usually blooms in March, something this popular hybrid has taken after. You can almost set your calendar after this one, my favorite Easter flower. I think it turned out extra nice this year, really deep in color.
  It has a really nice long spike, it measures 35 cm this year with a really large flower at the top, about 11 cm wide. It has a very faint fragrance, smells somewhat like old fashion roses. Unfortunately the flower does not lasts very long, only about 2 weeks. But the foliage is almost more beautiful than the flower. It is shiny and dark green, almost blue-green, with burgundy underneath. It is also has the world’s cutest furry buds! Simply adorable. I love the extra fuzzy Paphiopedilums. The buds almost look like exotic larvae that eventually turn into beautiful butterflies.
Ho Chi Minh is a Parvisepalum primary hybrid between Paphiopedilum vietnamense och P. delenatii. The parents hail from Vietnam and are primarely lithophytes. I grow mine in intermediary temperatures on the windowsill in bark/volcanic rock mix under additional lighting.
 This beautiful Phalaenopsis species is primarily found in Malaysia and Sumatra at elevation of about 150 meters. The common name is “The Violet Phalaenopsis,” and the sumatran and malaysian forms are intensely violet in color. This coerulea form is largely white(ish) but with very nice blue details – as indicated by the name. There is also an alba form with waxy almost completely white flowers, but with hints of green on the tips of the petals, just like my coerulea.
Phalaenopsis bellina was actually originally registered as a violacea (var. borneo), but have since been reclassified as its own species. Phalaenopsis bellina is very similar to the violacea, but has larger flowers and is generally a bit more colorful. What is true for both bellina and violacea is the wonderful scent! The whole rooms smells wonderful right now. I really like this plant. It bloomed late last summer and is now at it again, and a regular bloomer is definitely a welcome addition to any collection.
I grow mine on the bottom of my warm vivarium where it enjoys medium/low light, high humidity (85-90%) and 24-28 degrees. I grow this and all my warmth loving Phals in plastic mesh pots, the same used for aquatic plats, with EpiWeb as the media. I really like the mesh pots since they allow for good air circulation among the roots, and the EpiWeb does not get too soggy, or break down too fast in the high humidity.
  I have two lovely Maxillaria variabilis in bloom right now. This species vary quite a bit in color, just like the name suggests. I got the red form from Orchids & More a few years ago, and the yellow form in a trade with a friend just this fall. There are more differences than color though… the red one has a shorter lip and perhaps the sepals are a bit more narrow as well. In any case… both have a very slight fragrance, you have to stick your nose directly into the flower to detect it, but it is there. A pleasant flowery scent… Lilley of the Vallye perhaps.
 Is is a genus native to South America. It is a fairly small orchid with a sprawling, or bushy, growing style. Apparently it is not too fuzzy about where it grows as it has been found both as a terrestrial, litophyte and epiphyte at altitudes between 500 and 2500 meters. I grow mine on the windowsill in intermediary temperatures and medium light.
 This little Masdevallia can be found in Colombia, Venezuela and possibly north-west Brazil at altitudes between 200 and 800 meters. I grow mine on the windowsill, medium light, intermediate temps and planted in sphagnum moss. I bought it from Orchids & More last summer and it is now blooming for the first time. The flowers are small (approximately 2 cm) and delicate and the plant itself is small to medium size. I really like the color of the flowers. I think they look almost as if they were made out of metal.
Masdevallia norae was first described by Luer in 1988. Carlyle August Luer is a world renowned pleurothallid expert from the USA. He has described more than 1,500 new orchid species and 12 new genera. But Masdevallia norae actually got her name after another very famous orchid collector… Ellinor (“Nora”) Freeman Dunsterville (1904-2004). She collected more than 1,055 species and wrote countless articles together with her husband “Stalky”. Their accounts inspired a whole generation of orchid growers, and several species were named after them, including this little Masdevallia.
I bet you did not know that it actually was the Dunsterville’s extensive expeditions in Venezuela – and subsequently orchids – that inspired Arthur Conan Doyle to write The Lost World…
 Finally there is a new large terrarium standing in the orchid room. Empty as of yet, but full of promise. This is truly a Valentine’s Day gift right up my alley, much better than roses!
I will convert this terrarium into a cool vivarium and create my own little orchid cloud forest in there. Well, perhaps “little” is an inappropriate description since it measures 175 cm wide, 160 cm high and 65 cm deep. A significant space in other words, and I plan to fill it with (mostly) Pleurothallids! I found it used online after many months of searching. There are usually many terrariums for sale, but it has been hard to find one this large.
So, yesterday dear husband and I drove a couple of hours south with a large trailer in tow to pick it up. The terrarium is a few years old, but is in very nice shape. The guy I bought this from has had large boas in it, and he obviously he took good care of it. While cleaning it up I found a sticker on the aluminium frame with the name of the glass company who made it, so it is a professional build.
 The build is a light weight aluminium frame with 4 mm glass both on the sides and for the sliding doors on the front. A really smart solution for this build is the double walled polycarbonate used for the back wall. It is the same plastic often used for greenhouses instead of glass. It makes the terrarium much lighter and less fragile. I will still have to get a new cover for it since the guy had a wooden ceiling before. I had checked the price of building a brand new one, but it’s really, really expensive. To find one this nice used is a great deal. Especially since it will cost a lot more to actually outfit.
I am now researching the equipment for it… rain systems, foggers, a fan system to draw cool air in from the outside, hygro/temp thermostat, good light fixture for the Dulux 80W CFL’s I want… This is going to be a long, but really fun project.
 This lovely little miniature epiphyte hails from Costa Rica. I got it in a trade with a friend late this fall and it is now blooming for the first time for me. It has tiny (5 mm) flowers, in fact they are so small you almost have to photograph them to really see how beautiful the flowers really are (just wish I had a proper macro)… The second photo allows for much larger magnification – for all of you with larger screens.
 Trichosalpinx (trick-oh-SAL-pinks) – the plant is far less complicated than the name by the way – is a fairly small genus closely related to Pleurothallis. The name means “a trumpet with hairs” and refers to these ribbed sheaths on the stems. I am not sure what species this is though, the abbreviation sp. (short for species) is just a common catch-all for unidentified species.
I have grown mine on the windowsill in sphagnum moss, but it will soon move into my new cool viv.
 I have two very nice Masdevallia tovarensis orchids. Both of which are in bud right now. One bud opened early in December and it was beautiful!! But the rest are just sitting there, waiting. Waiting for what!?! Every day go in there looking, hoping, waiting. But nothing.
I finally figured out that I think they want more humidity in order to deliver the big price. We have had an unusually cold winter here, so I have actually had to turn on the heater in the orchid room (very low) for the first time ever. So needless to say the relative humidity has plummeted. So, to cater to my darling M. tovarensis I devised a plan. I cranked up the humidifier and ran it solid all night and every other hour during the day for a whole week – with the door closed.
That sure did the trick! The RH in the room hovered around 70-80% and I could practically see the buds swelling. They were loving it! …but the wallpaper did not. It finally gave up and began to bubble in places, despite the four coats of paint on top of them. My dear patient husband finally put his foot down. Can’t say I blame him really – but what about my fuzzy Masdevallias?
That just made me double my efforts looking for a suitable terrarium to convert to a cool vivarium for these guys… and today I think I might have found it. More to come…
 This is a warm growing miniature epiphyte from Ecuador found at elevations of 200 to 500 m. It is a small orchid, the fan measures about 7 cm across and the flowers are only about 0,7 cm a piece. But what she lacks in size she makes up for in abundance. It was quite exciting to follow the development this season, with more flower spikes appearing pretty much daily, eventually producing 11 spikes all together. Impressive!
  I have not been able to find much info on this species, but the genus is pretty large (50 species) and grows accross tropical America. The name (or-NITH-o-SEF-a-lus) actually stem from paleontology. Naming an animal (a flying dinosaur) thought to be intermediate between a mammal and a bird, Ornithocephalus basically mean “bird head.” I grow mine mounted in the warm vivarium under medium light. Evidently this is the right way to grow this little gem.
However… looking at the closeup of the flowers and comparing it to other photos I have seen of this species (t.ex. IOSPE), I am pretty sure this is not really a manabina. The flowers on my plant are much more, hmmm… expressive, and quite beautiful I might add. Mine comes from a reputable grower, Orchids & More, and it was labelled Ornithocephalus manabina. It could of course have been mislabeled, unfortunately this is not uncommon in orchid cultivation.
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