Got any pictures?

I posted a thread a few weeks back with photos of my first natural cypripedium encounter in the wild. It was cyp. acaule. The plants are almost all still in bloom and beautiful.

At some point I hope to acquire a few plants, probably parvi/pubescens or a hybrid there of. Mostly I want to wait until I have my own yard to plant them because growing them in pots seems a little daunting. Got any tips for us on how to care for them?

Congrats either way! I bet it's very exciting. I'd be delirious if I had grown a cyp to bloom.

CONGRATS!!

I've tried 3 times to grows cyps but failed miserably, so I know this is quite an accomplishment!

Good to know someone was successful. Now that they're established, you just have to sit back and enjoy the blooms for years to come....and take pictures to share with us.

Please do post pics. Let me add my congratulations too.

Sheila :)

First of,thank you for your kind words.

I grew the cyp in a pot 'cause I wasn't about to share it with the local snail population. Anyway, to safe you a long list of "DO NOT" I'll post word for word an instruction I finally followed by a guy named Tom on the Slipper Forum. I hope he does not mind me sharing his wisdom:

"The exact medium used is not so important as long as it is free draining and remains moist year round. Also, I would fertilize regularly during the growth cycle for best growth. A 10-10-10 or less liquid fertilizer at 1/4 strength should do fine, say once a month until September.

You can put it under your overhang as long as it doesn't get any sunshine and temperatures do not get too low. (I was not sure how low 'low' meant, so I put the cyp pot inside a larger plastic pot, covered it with some pine branches during the one week of frost we had in early December.) Again, be sure it remains moist (NOT WET!) throughout the winter. Growth should commence around late April. Don't force the plant by bringing it inside. Better to let it naturally start growing in a cool, shady spot. At that point you can move it to a brighter location."

That's it in a nutshell! Please e-mail me if you have further questions.

Unfortunately, I don't know how to post photos here, otherwise I would have done so. Sorry!

Helga.

Thanks for the info Helga.

BTW, if you want to share photos with us, you need to sign up with a photosharing site like photobucket, flikr, or picasa. These are all free (though they may offer professional accounts for a monthly fee, this is generally not needed).

Once you sign up, follow the instructions for uploading your digital photos to your account. After that, they all provide the HTML code that you can cut and paste here to share your photos.

I'd highly recommend it if you get the chance. We all love seeing orchid photos and cyps are something that don't show up on the orchid forum very often.

Helga, I use Photobucket and find it easy, and I'm not a high-tech person - still use my cellphone only for phone calls. :)

Oh, and many congratulations. It's marvelous when you find the right info.

digitalphrag and whitecat8, I am not computer savy. Have registered with Photobucket and uploaded my images, but still have no clue as to how to post it on this page. Could you PLEASE provide me with more detailed information.

I have posted a website, but am not sure if it will give you the picture. So sorry.

Helga

Helga congrats!!

If you go to your photobucket and find your photo, right click on it and you should see a little pop-up menu thing (assuming you're using windows) that says something along the lines of "Copy image location". Then just paste it here and we should be able to use it to get to your photo.

Alternatively if you feel like challenging yourself, type:

[img src="PASTE YOUR PHOTO LINK HERE"] and replace the square brackets with the pointy brackets.

Although photobucket may already have the link given to you somewhere on the page.

Is it going to work?

Thanks to Calvin I was able to post a photo on the Gallery. YOu can view the photo of the cypripedium "Inge" there. I am still working on trying to get it to post on this page.

H.