Monk Orchid (Oeceoclades maculata)

The most exciting aspect of Adventure Gardening is the thrill of the hunt. No matter where I am, if I see a plant, it's mine. If it's not legal to take for being in someone's yard, I'm still grabbing a cutting or a seedpod. That's just how I roll.

Anyhow, wandering in the Florida woods we came across this lovely Monk Orchid. Actually, we came across dozens of them. We've seen them in Fort Lauderdale and again in the Keys. They have lovely mottled leaves, and dainty little flowers. They were growing in the shade, and I wouldn't have even noticed them except my eye instantly recognized the shape of the orchid leaves and was drawn to them.

This lucky fellow had one leaf when we found/stole it, and after kidnapping it a second leaf grew, and the entire thing doubled/tripled in size. It's potted in soil, and seems to be quite content. It sent up a flower stem about a week ago and today it bloomed- the first time I've ever seen the flowers.

I'm planning on grabbing some more if I come across them again- they aren't protected and are considered more of a weed, strangely enough.

I was happy enough about the foliage but the flowers were a nice surprise, and even more happy to know that they tend to self-pollinate and make seed pods, which is fun for me because I'm going to start flasking soon! I'm very excited about flasking, and I shall document my misadventures here. I ordered some orchid seeds from Thailand for experimentation. I also plan to attempt to tissue culture various rare/expensive plants in my yard. I'm stepping up my game on the plant propagation front.

Cost: $0
Source: Woods in south Florida somewhere

Crazy Airplant/Bromeliad/Orchid Jungle Tree

This is a big umbrella tree that we have been adding to, and it is coming out awesome. It has dozens of varieties of tillandsia airplants, 3 bromeliads, 1 dendrobium orchid, 2 zig zag cactus, spanish moss, etc. Under and around it is a variegated monstera, variegated pothos, ferns, calico vine. I am having fun adding stuff to it, and I am starting another tree as well.

Some of my orchids

Thought I'd snap some photos of these before they went out of bloom. One is a paphopedilum or lady slipper orchid I purchased at the redlands orchid festival. The one above it is just a phalenopsis.

Trip to AOS American Orchid Society

Here are some photos from my trip to the American Orchid Society... I don't know what happened to the rest of my photos. I will have to go again and take more! The thing above is some sort of rock and woodwork with bromeliads, tillandsias, and orchids mounted all over it. The orchids are mainly in pots, however, which I thought was neat. I am going to attempt to make something like this at some point.

Below are some cute epinendrums and some sort of weird vining orchid that I cannot find the name of. It his skinny, cactus-like segmented stalks. They are all over the place at AOS and are never labeled.

Below is a plant that drove me crazy. I loved it, but there was no label and no one that worked there could tell me what it was. I gave up on trying to find out what it was, and then one day I went on ebay and it was right smack in the middle of ebay's suggestions for me. Behold, the leopard lily, or leopard iris, or blackberry lily:

I need to take more photos the next time I go there. They had a lot of really cool stuff I wanted.