Picking up from Paph Season 2024, it's time for a new thread.
I've received a handful of concerned messages so I guess I need to come out of hibernation and get my 2025 thread rolling. I appreciate those who reached out and I promise I am very much alive, and most of my plants are too.
Hurrican Helene passed over us on the way to NC and while I was lucky enough to avoid any direct damage we did lose power for five days. My main greenhouse suffered from the heat and still air, opening the doors to let some heat out caused more harm via sunburn so I had to cool the plants with water as much as possible and hope for the best. I ended up losing a couple hundred plants, mostly younger seedlings, plants that were marginally tolerant to my climate under the best conditions, and my novelty Phals which burned up. Thankfully the vast majority of my multis got through it with minimal damage. I expect that it will be a year or two before I see many award quality blooms again but I could use a break from all those award fees anyway
Now that all the doom and gloom is out of the way, Helene wasn't all bad. I have a secondary hoop style greenhouse that I use as a summer shadehouse for Catts and Oncidiinae (Notice this thread is now Orchid Season rather than my traditional Paph Season title?) I switch to plastic for winter and heat it with propane to about 50°. At the start of the season I threw a hundred or so expendable Paphs out there to see how they would grow compared to the plants in my main greenhouse and they absolutely thrived. I'm starting to believe the old timers who say there is magic in rainwater. Those plants weren't the least bit bothered by Helene and didn't seem to mind the cooler winter temps, given how well they grew through the full season I've started working on a new structure to keep the rest of my collection in the same way.
The next bit of good news is that I got a call from my lab a few days ago and I have a good number of flasks ready to go. My wife and I are in the process of setting up Bitis Botanical as a legitimate busines and once I get out to the lab to take an inventory we will open our webstore for flask and eventual plant sales.
Earlier in the thread I noted the name change from Paph Season to Orchid Season, over the last two years my collection has diversified significantly. I've started working more heavily with my first orchid love, Brassia, I have at least a dozen crosses currently in the pipeline. I also caught the Cattleya bug after snubbing them for the last three decades. It started with seeing the spectacular collection of our sister society's President Tom Carter in our show displays and meetings, then I started paying more attention on my visits to Carter and Holmes, following growers like Chadwick and Cerro Verde on social media, and now I have developed an appreciation for the species and classic hybrids in particular that rivals my love for multis.
2025 is going to be an exciting year, I'm looking forward to watching my collection recover and continue to grow, to seeing my own homemade seedlings take over my benches, and to growing Bitis Botanical from a vague hope and a funny clonal name to a respectable nursery.
Cattleya trianae 'Cashen's' FCC/AOS first bloom mericlone
Sophronitis cernua, jungle collected clone from Steven Christoffersen
Coelogyne ovalis
Paph Hilo Bald Eagle culls
Cattleya walkeriana coerulea 'Manhattan'
BLC. Angel Lace 'Perfection'
I've received a handful of concerned messages so I guess I need to come out of hibernation and get my 2025 thread rolling. I appreciate those who reached out and I promise I am very much alive, and most of my plants are too.
Hurrican Helene passed over us on the way to NC and while I was lucky enough to avoid any direct damage we did lose power for five days. My main greenhouse suffered from the heat and still air, opening the doors to let some heat out caused more harm via sunburn so I had to cool the plants with water as much as possible and hope for the best. I ended up losing a couple hundred plants, mostly younger seedlings, plants that were marginally tolerant to my climate under the best conditions, and my novelty Phals which burned up. Thankfully the vast majority of my multis got through it with minimal damage. I expect that it will be a year or two before I see many award quality blooms again but I could use a break from all those award fees anyway
Now that all the doom and gloom is out of the way, Helene wasn't all bad. I have a secondary hoop style greenhouse that I use as a summer shadehouse for Catts and Oncidiinae (Notice this thread is now Orchid Season rather than my traditional Paph Season title?) I switch to plastic for winter and heat it with propane to about 50°. At the start of the season I threw a hundred or so expendable Paphs out there to see how they would grow compared to the plants in my main greenhouse and they absolutely thrived. I'm starting to believe the old timers who say there is magic in rainwater. Those plants weren't the least bit bothered by Helene and didn't seem to mind the cooler winter temps, given how well they grew through the full season I've started working on a new structure to keep the rest of my collection in the same way.
The next bit of good news is that I got a call from my lab a few days ago and I have a good number of flasks ready to go. My wife and I are in the process of setting up Bitis Botanical as a legitimate busines and once I get out to the lab to take an inventory we will open our webstore for flask and eventual plant sales.
Earlier in the thread I noted the name change from Paph Season to Orchid Season, over the last two years my collection has diversified significantly. I've started working more heavily with my first orchid love, Brassia, I have at least a dozen crosses currently in the pipeline. I also caught the Cattleya bug after snubbing them for the last three decades. It started with seeing the spectacular collection of our sister society's President Tom Carter in our show displays and meetings, then I started paying more attention on my visits to Carter and Holmes, following growers like Chadwick and Cerro Verde on social media, and now I have developed an appreciation for the species and classic hybrids in particular that rivals my love for multis.
2025 is going to be an exciting year, I'm looking forward to watching my collection recover and continue to grow, to seeing my own homemade seedlings take over my benches, and to growing Bitis Botanical from a vague hope and a funny clonal name to a respectable nursery.
Cattleya trianae 'Cashen's' FCC/AOS first bloom mericlone
Sophronitis cernua, jungle collected clone from Steven Christoffersen
Coelogyne ovalis
Paph Hilo Bald Eagle culls
Cattleya walkeriana coerulea 'Manhattan'
BLC. Angel Lace 'Perfection'
