A Couple of parvis in Bloom & Bud

[Happypaphy7]

A first time blooming vietnamense & Golden Palace (Mem. Larry Heuer x armeniacum) on their 4th week in bloom & armeniacum in double buds!!
The photos of armeniacum is taken in two weeks intervals with the second one being already one week old. The spikes are much longer & the buds larger. I’m surprised by how fast they are developing along. It has a history of bud blasting which is seen in the photos. I hope they will be nice when in bloom!

**Mem.Larry Heuer is malipoense x emersonii.

 

[mrhappyrotter]

From what I understand, a 4 week old vietnamense bloom is practically a unicorn. Nice job on that. And that's a great quality Golden Palace. So many of those, mine included, seem to have lovely shape when they first open, but over the weeks the petals and dorsal sepal start to flop and recurve. Looks like your plant's flower is very shapely and at this stage that's unlikely to change significantly. Do you recall where you picked it up from?

 

[Happypaphy7]

From what I understand, a 4 week old vietnamense bloom is practically a unicorn. Nice job on that. And that's a great quality Golden Palace. So many of those, mine included, seem to have lovely shape when they first open, but over the weeks the petals and dorsal sepal start to flop and recurve. Looks like your plant's flower is very shapely and at this stage that's unlikely to change significantly. Do you recall where you picked it up from?

Isn't it Ho Chi Minh that's known for very short-lived flower life span? Btw, it is about to drop off as of today. The photo is already a few days old. Golden Palace is still going strong. I'm quite happy with the size and the shape on both.
Golden Palace opened up completely flat and light green, but then over the course of one week it grew larger and slightly twisted around as seen in the photo but not too bad at all. The color has turned yellow which I love. The only complaint I have is that the plant is rather large and the leaf patterns are almost non-existent. Oh, well...
I also had Latoya (Fanaticum x armeniacum) bloom earlier this year. The plant is also unfortunately large but at least the patterns are there. The flower was nice and chunky and large, but atlas, the color was almost white. I did not even take a photo of it. lol
All this leaves lots of pressure on that poor armeniacum in bud hahaha
The yellow one is from Hillsview. Vietnamense was from some other source.

 

[Tom-DE]

The armeniacum hybrid is outstanding...Both HCM and vietnamense have short-lived flowers according to people who posted here, ~2 weeks, and for that reason, I regretted buying both of them even though I like the flowers, but I will see for myself....

 

[Happypaphy7]

The armeniacum hybrid is outstanding...Both HCM and vietnamense have short-lived flowers according to people who posted here, ~2 weeks, and for that reason, I regretted buying both of them even though I like the flowers, but I will see for myself....

HCM for sure, but not vietnamense. At least I have only heard 3-4 weeks as their average flower life span.
My biggest concern for vietnamense has always been the droopy petals. So I am pleasantly surprised by my very first vietnamense flower.

 

[Tom-DE]

HCM for sure, but not vietnamense. At least I have only heard 3-4 weeks as their average flower life span.
My biggest concern for vietnamense has always been the droopy petals. So I am pleasantly surprised by my very first vietnamense flower.

I was told HCM might last longer than the species... do a search here and see what others may say about vietnamense flower.
What is the LS of your vietnamense? Mine is about 4.75" and I was told it could bloom on a plant with 5" LS. MY HCM is about 6" LS...Hopefully, both are near BS now.

 

[Happypaphy7]

I was told HCM might last longer than the species... do a search here and see what others may say about vietnamense flower.
What is the LS of your vietnamense? Mine is about 4.75" and I was told it could bloom on a plant with 5" LS. MY HCM is about 6" LS...Hopefully, both are near BS now.

I have gone through quite a few HCM over the years and my experience with the hybrid is about the same as what others say. They are very very short-lived in bloom. I count from the day the flower has fully opened up which can be somewhere from couple of days to a few days. To me, it's like as soon as the flower has fully opened up, the brown spots start to appear and the flower begins to wilt. So all in all, it's a few days to me. I did have one exception though where a flower lasted for nearly one full week before any spots started to show up.
Delenatii on the other hand lasts easily 3-4 weeks in bloom. The same goes for vietnamense as I understand.

The LS of my vietnamense is about 5in. It is a small plant typical of the species. HCM is usually much larger due to delenatii influence. Delenatii can be small but usually on the larger side relatively speaking. I would say that your vietnamense is of blooming size or near blooming size. Your HCM is still a baby. The flower on my vietnamense is over 4inch wide by the way. The flower/plant size ratio of vietnamense is probably among its best characteristics.

 

[Tom-DE]

Good to know! and I think your vietnamense flower is quite big...

 

[Happypaphy7]

Yeah, I'm happy with it. I was not expecting much as my impression of the species had been that 'difficult-to-grow and bloom diva, why bother?' plus droopy petals that doesn't do me much. HCM has always been my much preferred alternative. Easy to find (not anymore here in Europe!) and easy to grow and bloom, gorgeous flower and leaves. Then, the fatal flaw, it last barely a few days in bloom. I do plan to remake HCM once I get myself a decent delenatii, though. I just love their glossy deep green leaves with silver patterns. or green patterns over silver.

By the way, the flower on the vietnamense has wilted completely this morning. I'm gonna save pollen.
There're still no signs of any new growth yet. Not a vigorous grower, I guess. Will repot it and hopefully it will start doing something soon.

 

[Happypaphy7]

For those size queens, both flowers are over 4inch ns.
The yellow one is just teeny weeny bit over 4, and the pink one is well over 4inch. It's like almost as big as the plant itself. Love it!!