If you have a very large mixed collection of orchids you will find that some of them will bloom at times when high Nitrogen fertilizer is being used i.e in the warmer months of the year. In my opinion bloom booster is bulldust. Here is a link to a previous thread that contains much useful information. Here is a link that might be useful: Previous discussion

Hi Krista: Your bouquets made my day. Thank you! They look like paintings that lift my spirit. I love Jacques Cartier with the button-hole. I enjoy your pics. very much. My sister in Southern CA informed me that a contagious disease wiped out her garden, including Annie L. McDowell. I think it's downy mildew. She lives near the coast. My heavy clay retains salt well, so I keep track of salt-index of fertilizers. CA dry climate with saline water is worse, that can shoot up one's blood pressure, plus wreck havoc on plants. I put too much Jobes organic fertilizer NPK 2-7-4 (bone meal, sulfate of potash, etc) into the planting hole of Gruss an Teplitz. It broke out in mildew instantly. So I put soluble gypsum on Gruss. That took away 80% of the mildew, amazing. Gypsum is used to de-salt saline soil or water. Gypsum salt-index is 8, so I gave Gruss "banana water" made by soaking chopped up banana peels NPK 0-3-42, very high in potassium and no salt. I let it soak for a few days, and watered Gruss with that. That helped! My husband is a marathon runner .. I don't run, but read his running magazines. In one study, volunteers were divided into 3 groups: fed low-salt diet, and low-potassium, fed high-salt diet, and high-potassium with lots of bananas, and a control group. Surprisingly, the group with high-salt and high-potassium had better blood-pressure than the group with low-salt and low-potassium diet. That's why they always feed runners bananas after the race .... This post was edited by Strawberryhill on Mon, Jul 29, 13 at 12:45

Hi Mary! Thanks for all the osmanthus info! Now I'll have to google them. :) I live in Tulsa, OK and last year I left 'Betty Marshall' (a white brug with spicy fragrant blooms) in the ground and thanks to the mild winter we had last year it survived! The only problem is it takes all summer for it to grow large enough to flower. :( It's been blooming for a couple of weeks now but I wish I had kept a larger specimen in a pot for quicker blooms. You might try posting your question on the brug forum. You'd probably get tons of recommendations. :) -Robert

These flowers are amazing; I would not have thought this bud would open, but it gave a last push and here it is, albeit a bit smaller. Still very fragrant. Note the remaining buds are starting to turn brown and fizzle - don't expect them to open. Tape on my thumb is where the knife slipped yesterday afternoon while dividing some hosta and cut my thunb - only a surface cut! Here is the next hosta bloom size I am working on : ok, actually the very large and beautiful double brugmansia, but similar smell and whiteness to the petals. Finally, with all the rain the brugmanisa are really growing and putting on a show! Out to divide and plant more hosta today, finishing my Fall planting work. Bruce