Paphiopedilum Johanna Burkhardt 'Rajani' FCC/AOC

[emydura]

My Paphiopedilum Johanna Burkhardt (or WBW) won Grand Champion at our Spring show last weekend and the award was upgraded from an AM to an FCC. Quite simply the best orchid I have ever flowered.

 

[kiwi]

Impressive. What is the breeding?

 

[emydura]

Impressive. What is the breeding?

Thanks. Sam's breeding - (rothschildianum 'Leo' SM/JOGA x adductum var. anitum 'Ace' AM/AOS)

 

[Ray]

What can one say besides "Excellent" and "good growing!"

 

[gego]

Congrats, very well done.

 

[cattmad]

Congratulations David, very well flowered. You must buy quality plants

 

[emydura]

Congratulations David, very well flowered. You must buy quality plants

LOL. I only buy the best plants from the best sellers. Do you have any more?

Thanks Brad. I am just glad I got to join you and Stephen with an FCC Johanna Burkhardt. You guys were having all the fun with this hybrid.

 

[cattmad]

LOL. I only buy the best plants from the best sellers. Do you have any more?

Thanks Brad. I am just glad I got to join you and Stephen with an FCC Johanna Burkhardt. You guys were having all the fun with this hybrid.

I have 3 AM’s from that cross, I’m now waiting for Sam’s last remake of this Grex to mature. A few years yet on those

I think JB / WBW is easily the nest multi floral hybrid these days

 

[Djthomp28]

Congratulations! That is a gorgeous one.

 

[emydura]

I have 3 AM’s from that cross, I’m now waiting for Sam’s last remake of this Grex to mature. A few years yet on those

I think JB / WBW is easily the nest multi floral hybrid these days

I agree with you on JB/WBW. The best multi hybrid for sure. Size, colour, shape, tall spikes. It has it all. Plus it is such a consistently good cross. You rarely see a dud one. Australian judges sure do love them. Including mine, there have been 29 awards for JB in 8 years, of which 4 are FCC's. With all your seedlings waiting to flower, looks like there will be plenty more awards to come in the future.

 

[hkunberger]

Congratulations! Lovely plant and great pictures.

 

[Jpari]

That one is simply outstanding! Congratulations.

 

[Royal Rea]

Well done, what an improvement from its AM flowering.

 

[emydura]

Well done, what an improvement from its AM flowering.

Thanks. Four flowers sure helps. The flowers also aligned as well as I could hope for.

 

[cattmad]

Thanks. Four flowers sure helps. The flowers also aligned as well as I could hope for.

You seem to be a mast at getting flowers to align perfectly, are you doing anything special to get them to do that?

 

[My Green Pets]

Nothing less than breathtaking! Well well well done!!

 

[emydura]

You seem to be a mast at getting flowers to align perfectly, are you doing anything special to get them to do that?

I don't leave it to chance. Invariably if you do nothing, the flowers will alternate along the spike facing left or right. This can look nice, and in some cases I prefer this. For example, the Bel Royal flowers look better with the alternate arrangement. But for roths and some of the roth hybrids, I find it nicer if all the flowers are facing mostly in the one direction, like this WBW. So, if I see that a flower is going to face in a completely different line to the rest of the spike, I try and manually manipulate the flowers.

For the spike above, the top flower wanted to naturally face almost at right angles to its left. So, what I did was move the stem of the 4th flower so that it was on the other side of the ovary of the 3rd flower. The ovary of the 3rd flower forced the 4th flower to face straight ahead. I did this pretty late in the piece which meant that I had to delicately move the 4th flower underneath the 3rd over to the other side. I regularly use this technique. Other times, I might use a small piece of wire, held by the flower clips, to force a bud in a certain direction.

In the case of the spike above, you do not want the flowers to be perfectly in a line as there is not enough space between the top three flowers. The flowers would be all on top of each other. The third flower is just enough off center to allow the 2nd and 4th flowers to sit in their own space.

It is a bit trial and error. Sometimes, it works, other times not so good. In the case of the spike above, it couldn't have worked better.

 

[cattmad]

I don't leave it to chance. Invariably if you do nothing, the flowers will alternate along the spike facing left or right. This can look nice, and in some cases I prefer this. For example, the Bel Royal flowers look better with the alternate arrangement. But for roths and some of the roth hybrids, I find it nicer if all the flowers are facing mostly in the one direction, like this WBW. So, if I see that a flower is going to face in a completely different line to the rest of the spike, I try and manually manipulate the flowers.

For the spike above, the top flower wanted to naturally face almost at right angles to its left. So, what I did was move the stem of the 4th flower so that it was on the other side of the ovary of the 3rd flower. The ovary of the 3rd flower forced the 4th flower to face straight ahead. I did this pretty late in the piece which meant that I had to delicately move the 4th flower underneath the 3rd over to the other side. I regularly use this technique. Other times, I might use a small piece of wire, held by the flower clips, to force a bud in a certain direction.

In the case of the spike above, you do not want the flowers to be perfectly in a line as there is not enough space between the top three flowers. The flowers would be all on top of each other. The third flower is just enough off center to allow the 2nd and 4th flowers to sit in their own space.

It is a bit trial and error. Sometimes, it works, other times not so good. In the case of the spike above, it couldn't have worked better.

I have gently moved some buds on plants when they want to look at odd angles sometimes and need adjusting but not to that level. It certainly makes the spike present to maximum effect. Thanks

 

[Ozpaph]

David that is massive!! So excited for you!