Slc. Kagaribi Dawn 'Red Star' - Back from the Dead!

A few posts back, I mentioned a bit of a disaster I had with this plant. What I didn't see was that there was another cluster of 4 buds emerging in amongst the foliage on another part of the plant. On Friday, I happened to notice the bright red of an opening flower whilst misting - much joy! Unfortunately, they're on a rather poorly placed stem, and I'm under strict instructions not to touch, so there will be no attempt to mess around with them to bring them into a better viewing position! The first two flowers to come out some time ago died during the week, so now we're down to these new flowers. Of course, if I hadn't snapped off the other 4 buds, we'd currently have 8 glorious blooms! 

New flowers, yay!

Re-shuffle, Re-plant, Re-decorate...

After getting a light meter, we've started some re-organising at OOAB, as I don't feel some of the plants are getting enough light. We also did some fairly major re-potting to our little succulent collection over the weekend, as several were straining their pots or otherwise looking sad. Here are some pictures of the results quickly snapped this morning, and a closer look at some of the plants.

"Shadecloth" (net curtain) added, we moved (L-R)
Cymbidium 2328 (Annie Kelly 'New Horizon' x Enzan Shining 'Geyserland')
Dendrobium kingianum
Laeliocattleya Tropical Treat C0341
Slc. Kararizi Dawn 'Red Star'
Also: payday and big queue for bank (in the street)!

I'm also thinking the Ascocentrum and Rhyncostylis might like to move closer to the light, and perhaps some of the other light-lovers - but we need more space there... Will have to Build Something! This side (pic above) of the balcony gets an hour or two of direct sunlight in the afternoon; we added some net curtain to help diffuse this a bit.

As a result of the move,
the "orchid shelf" is looking a little more barren
(also the Oncidium is currently on quarantine in the bathtub,
until I'm sure the black fly are dead).

In non-orchid news (bear with me, Orchidophiles!)...

On a trip around Sunnyside Garden Centre in Grahamstown (main purpose: obtain sand for making potting mix and new larger planters for succulents), we found some bags of fluorite/calcite stones at the bargain price of R30 each. These have now been artfully arranged around the succulent collection, which gets several hours of morning sun. Kind of hard to see in the picture, but I'm assured it looks Awesome. Will have to play with the lighting sometime to see if it can be rendered so on camera! As with pretty much all the photos on the blog, clicking on the picture will take you to a larger size so you can see what's going on.

Lots 'o Rocks (and plants).

Repotted succulents
Transplanted succulent seedlings (bonsai pot rear left)
New succulent seeds (under glass)

Not sure what this is, but I like the leaves a lot.
Has been flourishing since moving into this pot a few months ago.

Fockea edulis
This little plant had filled it's tiny old pot right up.
Time for more space!

Four of the baobab seedlings, coming along nicely.

First baobab to sprout, in supplied bonsai pot, new leaves opening.

Our African violet has come into bloom again, yay!
I imagine it's enjoying all the humidity it gets now.

One of our 2 Tillandsia caput-medusae bulbosa.
I'd like to find some bark or similar to mount them on.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming...!

The three Disa bivalvata we unflasked a few weeks back seem to be doing OK; here's an updated picture from this morning:

Disa bivalvata community pot

And one of our Paphiopedilum is about to open a new flower:

Paphiopedilum Onyx

Epic Fail.

I was going to have a blog post about just how well our Slc Kagaribi Dawn 'Red Star' was doing in the next few days. As well as the two flowers blogged in the first post, it had first shown signs of 2 more flower buds, then 3 and now 4!

Then, this morning, I thought I'd help the flowers to present a little better; one of the buds (the newest and closest to the main stem) was folded on top of the leaf; I decided it would look better under the leaf. So I tried gently persuading it to go there.

Snap

Drop

Gasp.

Looks like they're a lot less pliable that you would think. I had previously persuaded the other blooms to move into a new position (above the leaf) - but they were older and I guess the stems were longer and more pliable.

So this morning, I managed to snap what would have been 4 perfect blooms right off. Like an idiot :/

Sadness.

Warning: Much sadness below.

You can just about make out the buds on this shot from a couple of days ago,
on the stem at the left behind the flowers.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Once had flowers. 4 of them. Moments ago. :(

:(

Surely I can just push it back? No.

Fantastic Flowers. Could have had 6 :/

I tried "grafting" it back on, but it was impossible, there wasn't enough stalk, and the buds were so heavy they kept on pulling apart from the rest of the plant. And the wound started to go brown and "scab" very quickly, so I had to give up.

As they say on the Internets... EPIC FAIL. :(

Arghh.

Two days of "bad luck" at OOAB.

Edit:

In a related note, Tinus from Plantae.co.za sent me a message about the blog (I put a link in to my my signature when I emailed him asking about an order):

Hi James

Had a look at the blog. It looks interesting. We are starting our own and it should be running soon.

About the plant you bought from Michael – the reason you cannot find it on the RHS register is because the name is incorrect. It should be Kagaribi Dawn. Hope you did not buy it with the incorrect name?

Regards

Tinus

So at least it looks like my diagnosis of what this plant's name should be is right. A rather tiny consolation!

Sophrolaeliocattleya Kararizi Dawn 'Red Star'... or is it?

Our Sophrolaeliocattleya (Slc.) Kararizi Dawn 'Red Star' [bought from Exotic Plant Company (EPC)] has bloomed, with two gorgeous red flowers. Slc.  are intergeneric bybrids, with plants from the genera Sophronitis, Laelia and Cattleya in their ancestry. Wikipedia suggests there has been quite a bit of taxonomic upheaval in this group, and Slc. is probably not the correct name for many (if any) of them any more... I can't seem to find this particular hybrid in the RHS database either. :/ These plants apparently like fairly warm temperatures and quite a lot of light.

Slc. Kararizi Dawn 'Red Star'

Both flowers

Two more buds on their way - yay! Judging from how quickly the last flowers developed, they should open in about 2 weeks or less.

Close up of the labellum.

Interestingly, these flowers (and the others we saw already in bloom at EPC) are very red, with hardly any yellow and quite narrow petals; the "official" picture for this particular hybrid shows a lot of yellow, and much broader petals:

Slc. Kararizi Dawn 'Red Star'. Pic courtesy Exotic Plant Company.

I think I prefer the style of the ones we have to the "official" picture! It also seems possible that either EPC or their suppliers got the hybrid name a bit wrong; whilst googling Sophrolaeliocattleya, I came across something called Slc. Kagaribi Dawn 'Red Star'; this picture looks a lot more like ours! Also, the only google result for the name on the label is at the EPC website, whilst Kagaribi Dawn 'Red Star' gets quite a lot of hits. There is also an entry for Kagaribi Dawn (a hybrid of C. Kagaribi and C. Tropic Dawn - which are hybrids of hybrids too!) in the RHS database - looks like these plants are now considered to be Cattleya...!