Hooray: Two of my Orchids are in Flower Today!

Back in January I moved house.  It was a nerve wracking and anxious time, made more difficult because I grow a lot of plants inside terrariums, bottle gardens, and orchidariums, which I can’t bear to be parted from.  These enclosures all needed to be emptied and washed up, and the plants and glassware required careful packaging and wrapping.  The majority of these plants struggle when removed from the humid growing conditions inside their enclosures and due to this and the fact that all the plants require light to stay alive, meant that ideally all of the terrariums, orchidariums, and bottle gardens would need to be emptied and the plants prepared the day before everything was transported to our new home.  Naturally with so many plants to chaperone this was impossible, and as a result I spent the previous seven days tentatively prepping my plants, unable to do as much as I wanted.  By the time we got to two days before the move, an intense amount of work had gone into labelling and partially wrapping plants and arranging them in lanes, prepped and ready for the fastest entry into their respective enclosures.  Nearby houseplants formed an impenetrable shield; whilst many of our other belongings had been grouped one on top of the other to form tall towers that left as much floorspace as possible available for plants.

In the few months before the move, I invited removal companies to visit so they could give us a quote.  Most of these company representatives politely declined soon after stepping inside the front door claiming our home was, ‘beautiful but too much for us’ or ‘really quite breath-taking to visit but with so much glass and plants it’s not something we’d want to move ourselves’.

I am incredibly grateful to the fantastic guys from the removal company we used.  I have a lot of terrariums, orchidariums, and bottle gardens, and back in January when we moved here I had hundreds of plants.  Moving it all really was a mammoth task!

I have four particularly large and incredibly heavy terrariums.  At times I couldn’t bear to look, as the gents carried our terrariums, plants, pots, and belongings through awkward doorways to get outside.  Once outdoors there was no let up with an immediate ninety degree turning before they headed up an icy flight of steps and then turned again for the final few steps and then headed out under my beloved Wisteria and through the gate and onto the ice-covered pavement and road.

I was elated when we arrived at our new home.  The hard work paid off and all of my terrariums, orchidariums, bottle gardens, and plants were intact and looked just as good as they had at my previous home.  I feel fortunate that every single member of the team that moved us was truly amazing; they were experienced, hard working, organised, and really listened to what we needed and delivered us safely to our new home.

Unexpectedly, our heating broke the day after we moved in.  The weather was an icy -7C (or less) outside and we experienced temperatures of under 10C for a few days indoors.  The temperatures dipped and rose each day but these temperatures were murderous for a large swathe of my plants.  The vast majority of the plants that survived were sorely punished by the cold and left shrunken and withered, having become fragments of their former selves.

It was really rather heartbreaking at the time – hence, I’ve not written about my orchid collection for a while.  The plants that survived the trauma are not looking their best but we’re still together and I’m hoping we’ll live happily ever after.

Asplenium fissum

It’s not just my orchids that suffered, I lost a lot of houseplants, too.  This is Asplenium fissum, one of my much loved terrarium ferns….

I was so relieved when I found these tiny Asplenium fissum ferns alive inside this terrarium!  I adore these little ferns.  I was growing Asplenium fissum inside a number of other terrariums, but those ferns didn’t survive long once our heating stopped working.  Most of my Asplenium fissum ferns were eliminated on the first night.

Aerangis hyaloides flowers

Aerangis hyaloides is such a darling of a plant.  This miniature epiphytic orchid is stunningly beautiful.  I had a lot of plants and so I might be wrong, but I think that some of my older Aerangis hyaloides plants died when the temperatures dropped.

I am thrilled to share with you two more orchids that survived the move and are actually flowering today.  Hurrah!  I’ll show you a picture of each orchid that I took a couple of years ago and I picture of them both this weekend – here we go….

A look back at one of my Phalaenopsis deliciosa plants….

Here’s one of my Phalaenopsis deliciosa orchids.

See the same Phalaenopsis deliciosa plant in flower today……

A look back at my Aerangis luteoalba var. rhodosticta plant….

Here’s my Aerangis luteoalba var. rhodosticta plant in flower a couple of years ago…..

See my Aerangis luteoalba var. rhodosticta plant now!

Here’s my Aerangis luteoalba var. rhodosticita plant today!

This plant actually has three flowering stems.  There aren’t as many flowers on this Aerangis luteoalba var. rhodosticta plant today as their were back in January 2023, when I packed this plant up ready to move, but it’s amazing that after a gruelling experience this resilient Aerangis is in bloom.

I’m so grateful that these orchids survived and are flowering.  Plants have such a capacity to brighten our lives, I know my life is so much better when I am surrounded by plants.

To see more articles about orchids, please click here.

To see my plant pages and see pictures and information on growing various types of orchids, houseplants, ferns, perennials, annuals, trees, shrubs, vegetables, fruit, herbs, roses, and more, please click here.

To see my Calendar of Orchid Events, please click here.

To see my Calendar of Houseplant Events, please click here.

For gardening advice for September, please click here.