Now for the Winner!

How many of you recognize this? Club members will remember seeing this stunning plant at the CBS tour and winter meeting. I think the rather grand backdrop simply enhances the plant, and it's fancy ribbons too!

This Coelogyne cristata is worth the trip over to the show today! Be sure to congratulate our club pres. for displaying it as well!

Como Conservatory Winter Carnival Orchid Show

 There is still time TODAY, Jan. 30, 2011, to to to the St. Paul Winter Carnival Orchid Show at the Como Conservatory!

Why???? Well, if these photos don't explain it better than I would, you just aren't in the mood to be impressed....

 This is a display set up by three of our friends that also belong to the African violet group. SG, PK and JV really display amazing plants!

 I really liked the orchid in the center...

 These are just photos of a few of the hundreds of amazing plants.

 The conservatory also displays part of their own "in house" collections. The scale is hard to tell here unless you look closely, but if the person in the far left is full size, look how incredibly huge the orchid in the left rear section of the photo is.

 This thing was wild.... It had arching stems of these "puff balls" of flowers reaching all over the display.

Sometimes, you just have to be impressed.

Kohleria eriantha

Now THIS is a Kohleria! The large flowers are about the size of a quarter across and you can see from the photo that it produces an abundance of them.

 Grown in ample light it will stay reasonably compact. The green leaves with red edges show a bit of a silvery color which contrasts nicely with the fuzzy orange flowers with the yellow face dotted with more orange spots.

The closeup shows the fine little hairs on the flower, some still holding on to moisture from the last watering.

New [to us] Gesneriad

Drymonia oinochrophylla is attractive all year, glossy dark green leaves completely covering the plant. In the summer, it surprises me with a few large violet slipper flowers.


The flower is large, 2 to 3 inches long and and over and inch across. Drymonia flowers [on the ones I've grown] last 2 days. The color is vibrant, a good match for the leaves.
This plant is more than a foot across. The larger leaves are at least 3 inches long.
Very easy to grow and propagate, with some judicious pruning it will keep a dense shape; and
the prunings can make another plant.
Bright but not full sunlight has given me more flowers, but still just a few each summer here in Minnesota. The plant grows well in lower light, and is tolerant of cooler winters. The soil gets a little dry sometimes, doesn't seem to bother it, but it should not go completely dry.
This one is so easy. Add another genus to your collection.
Drymonia is a large genus, many long vines with unusual flowers. This species is compact and holds it's leaves well.
The orange flowers in front are Aeschynanthus humilis. More on this one in another post.