You motivated me to go outside. 3rd day of 100F, I watered the plants at 6AM, 10AM and 3PM so far, will probably water one more time. The rest of the day I have been hiding in my air conditioned room. On to the Dockrillas. I have small mounted extra plants of the following 3 hybrids: Dock Julie Skillicorn (striolata x mortii) Dock Australian Purple Pepper D or Dock (?) Australian Sunblessed (Dock dolicophylla x fulginosa) Dock Dolicophylla 'Medusa' x D teretifolia 'Yellow' The last 3 have been on eBay recently so may google up. I'm back inside where I'm going to stay until the evening! Nick

Cool as in the winter, but you will never find the plant growing down in a frost hollow, it is mostly found growing almost as a lithophyte in stony places or on rocks up somewhere on a hill and sometimes as an Epiphyte. Would be easy to grow in Santa Barbara. So what is the problem? I imagine light. It is often sunny in winter where it grows, and accomodation. My Phals are in this room and on the kitchen windowsill. They would not survive if i put them with my kingianums, but, the kingianums would happily grow if i bought them inside and put them next to the Phals., but they might not flower. They are adapted to survive drought that can occur at any time of year and if they get warm and wet they will grow. From the info. in Julie's post, i think she has them sussed out. Nancy, "so crabbed and tiny" just as well that particular speciosum doesn't belong to me, otherwise i might be upset and hurt. The picture is there to show flower detail of a typical clone, not a show winner. Here is my speciosum..... Howard wrote a great post a month or so ago about the Aquarium and Orchid Hobbies and how easy it is to get seduced by pictures and you end up trying to grow too many Genera. If D. kingianum is hard to flower in the frozen north this orchid is doubly difficult. Though i'm just as guilty, sometimes i try the ungrowable

I might have some interest, Nick. Depends on the company and what they offer. Had a real mess on a group order with one of the Aussie companies a couple years ago when the shipping got all screwed up at entry, my ten plants ended up only God knows where, but they did refund in full. Hopefully, it was a one-time happening.

Just a follow up on Nick's comments: $7.50 TABLES, not table--quite a few, actually. We're talking dozens of different kinds of plants. And not just common things--many that I at least have never heard of. That's what makes it so great--you can rapidly and cheaply expand your collection beyond the "ordinary" stuff. These are mostly species. They'll even sell you by mail ten or fifty plants (their choice, but tailored towards your growing conditions--I assume there are no repeats. I just checked and it even says they will try to honor your preferences. http://www.sborchid.com/plantdisplay.php?ooddate=2008-07-14 If you're lucky (and it helps if you're there early), you may be able to get something with a couple flowers or that will bloom soon. I bought a $7.50 pseudobulb of Cuitlauzina pendula that immediately put out a spike, before I had a chance to pot it up. Unfortunately, I soon managed to break of the spike! It has since flowered in N. California. Their code for plants that grow outside in much of Southern California is "temperature toleerant", and I *think* they label their $7.50's as such. Certainly they tell you something, or if all else fails you can just ask. Of course there's no guarantee the plant was grown outside--just ask. Last I heard Paul Gripp will tell you that he doesn't work there anymore. He's just a "volunteer", he says. His kids now own the place, I understand. The Trader Joe's plants are dirt cheap, but most of them were grown in greenhouses. However, if you know what you are doing (and many of them are labeled), you can keep them inside until they finish blooming, then put them outside and cross your fingers. At a minimum, you've had the initial blooms, which is what most people pay for. The Cymbidiums, for example, should rebloom. If you're interested in getting started on plants adapted to your climate, I notice that Nick mentions Ansellia. I have an Ansellia that is putting off keikis. I've read that they don't normally do this--undoubtedly it's because the plant needed to be repotted long ago, and possibly also because it just went through a move and its first winter in N. California. The keikis look perfectly healthy, as far as I can tell. Anyway, there are a variety of sizes, and while I'm using a few of the larger ones for trades, I could certainly spare one of the small ones--a freebie. I could simply put it into a padded envelope (with more padding, and pick a fairly flat one while I'm at it...) and hope for the best. This would be a TINY keiki, but with very healthy roots (as big as the plant). I don't think Ansellias are that easy to find. This is Ansellia africana 'Garden Party' HCC/AOS, originally from Cal Orchid. Again, it's tiny, but at least you would know what it is. These eventually make fairly large plants. Let me know if you are interested.