my bank account hates you right now epi.

haha, if your bank account hates me then that means your garden loves me. But maybe you'll find some great deals? Errr...and then maybe you'll find too many deals. Even great deals can add up I suppose. Santa Barbara Orchid Estate's $7.50 table is a perfect example of that.

Barry & Yvette Fisher often have some really great deals on ferns, Hoyas, orchids, Gesneriads and other plants. At the last show they were selling my second favorite epiphytic succulent, Kalanchoe uniflora, for only $3. They also usually have one of the neatest looking small, trailing epiphytic ferns...Microgramma squamulosa...photos...

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Hoya wise...in the past they've offered Hoya serpens and Hoya parasitica. Except, I'm thinking their parasitica is actually pauciflora.

My Hoya serpens bloomed for the first time on my tree...

{{gwi:537308}}

What's really nice about Barry & Yvette's collection is that all their plants have been growing outside for many years.

oh yeah, the better the deals the worse the self control.

ooooh that fern is neat.

duplicate post deleted.

This post was edited by nil13 on Wed, Jun 5, 13 at 17:00

Thanks for posting this - I will definitely make an effort to be there, barring major illness or some other unforeseen tragedy. It's been a while since I've been to the arboretum, and I am definitely interested in the orchids and bromeliads. I barely have room for more broms, however.

Lars

Carlos, Are those Pap hybrids sold at Home Depot hard outdoors? They have leaves more like a Miltonia or Catleya then a moth orchid. I was going to buy a nice large one with yellow star flowers,but not if it cant take a average bay area winter.

Carlos, Are those Pap hybrids sold at Home Depot hard outdoors? They have leaves more like a Miltonia or Catleya then a moth orchid. I was going to buy a nice large one with yellow star flowers,but not if it cant take a average bay area winter.

Thanks for the tip!

Stan, slippers have never interested me much so I really wouldn't know. Even though there are a few exceptions (Paphiopedilum villosum on a tree), they've never really struck me as good candidates for attaching to trees. You might try asking Asuka Orchids if they grow any outside year around.

This last weekend two guys from the bay area came over for a tour. One of the guys said he had really good success with Encyclia citrina and Encyclia mariae outdoors year around. I grow both of them and they are really solid growers. They are relatively available...but rarely are they ever "cheap".

I'd recommend doing a lot of homework, track down orchid growers in the bay area, make a list of good outdoor growers...and save up for the Pacific Orchid Expo in San Francisco. That's easily the biggest orchid show on the West Coast.

Ok I did google..and even though the label said Paph hybrid,they were Brassia orchids.. Are THOSE outdoor orchids for a cool,mild 10a?

That was quite a mislabel. If they were that badly mislabeled...I doubt it was a Brassia species. I even doubt it was a cross strictly within the Brassia genus. So my bet would be that it's an intergeneric Oncidium family hybrid. They are ubiquitous.

There are quite a few cooler growers in the Oncidium family so I wouldn't be surprised if you could grow a random intergeneric cross outside year around in the bay area. So if it's a real "deal"...and you don't mind a bit of a gamble...then go for it. It's always fun to gamble a bit and discover an excellent outdoor grower. But doing a bit of homework will definitely provide you with the most bang for your buck.

Here in my relatively dry and warmer conditions...I've found that the Oncidium intergeneric crosses appreciate a bit of moss. Of course it also depends on your watering frequency. More frequency means less moss. They also seem to do best with slightly shadier conditions...but they'll require less shade the closer one is to the coast.

Speaking of Brassias though...here's Brassia brachiata on a Jacaranda tree in Australia. I tend to think of Brassias as being more on the intermediate side...but I'm sure there are some species from higher elevations.

My brother and I went to sale (terrible time parking), and we bought three bromeliads (one for his office), three orchids (one that is completely attached to a cutoff branch that I hung in the apple tree), a bunch of living stone plants, three epiphytes (that DB wanted), and some more succulents. It was as much as we could carry - the bromeliads were a bit difficult. I would have bought more bromeliads if I had more room in the pergola, but it is started to get a bit crowded. I have adequate space for orchids and young epiphytes, for now. We recently upgraded the orchid holding area on the SE side of the house (the main area is on the NW side) so that I could store epiphyte cuttings. The rest of the back yard is extremely sunny, and the front yard is fairly sunny also, even though it has NE exposure.

Lars