I’ve had a love/hate relationship with my orchids for over 10 years now. I love them and they hate me. I’ve tried everything: special orchid fertilizers, creating micro-climates using giant cement mixing tubs filled with water and elevating the orchids above them for humidity, watering them, not watering them, moving them about by the windows and talking to them. Nothing seemed to matter. In 10 years I’ve killed no less than 12 orchids.

So imagine my surprise when I found my this snarky face greeting me in September?

Paphiopedilum that hadn’t bloomed in 8 years.

Encouraged, I bought two little, tiny, itty bity orchids for my H. Potter Barrel Roof Terrarium. I really didn’t expect either of them to bloom but look what opened up this week:

Restrepia Iris starting to open.

That little guy is about the size of a large gypsy moth.

And then, my first and only oncidium opened in full array this month:

Oncidium Twinkle “red fire” has 5 sprays that look like this, about a foot tall.

To give you an idea of scale, here’s a shot of one of these flowers next to a quarter:

So yeah, things are looking a tiny bit brighter in my living room these days.