Bark Confidential

Bark Confidential
by Selena Sabine

Word of a hot new bark hit the street like a scrap of salmon falling off a dinner plate.  “Kiwi bark,” they called it.  High quality stuff. You only need to repot every four or five years with it.  Old timers said that they haven’t seen bark like this since the 1980s.  I knew I had to get me some bags, so I hatched a deal.
 

It was a sun kissed September afternoon as I rolled up on the house, Toonces-style.  Stopped in front of the open garage, the smell of pine hit me like a water gun spray.  Trays of orchids everywhere.  Multiple genera.  True madness.  It looked like a severe case of orchid addiction and I had a feeling he was an accredited AOS judge.  I was in the right spot.  I put a roll of Andrew Jacksons in my fur coat and cautiously exited the car.

The man eyed me nervously through his spectacles.
 

“I hear you have some bark,” I said.
 

He nodded and pointed to an opened bag of dark brown wood chips.  I slowly reached my paw in the bag.  Careful.  Like I’m stealing a piece of chicken off the kitchen counter.  The situation was already high-wire – I didn’t need to make it more jumpy.  I brought the brown wood chip to my nose.  The way my whiskers bounced off its surface.  That forest aroma.  My tail flicked hopefully against the Fall air. I knew this was superior bark.

“Two bags.  Medium grade.”

After loading two bags in the trunk, he reached down for a third.

“Since you’re headed out West, I wonder if you wouldn’t mind holding a few for my associates.”

This is always how it starts.  You think you’re making a square cash-for-bark transaction, but there’s always a catch.  Then, before you know it, you’re trading in perlite.  You’re brokering charcoal deals.  You're the middle-man for reverse-osmosis equipment.  Then you find yourself caught in a web of secrets, extortion, bribery, blackmail, assassins, and the whole rotten root system of the underground potting materials trade.

“That wasn’t what I had in mind.”

“I thought you might say that.”

 He reached behind his back and produced a bag with a green leaf.  The pseudobulb showed viable roots.

“Dendrobium Lindleyi ‘Joy.’  For your troubles.”

Wasn’t this cutting from that gorgeous and floriferous award winner in the February show?

 
Well played.  He was good.  I started purring in spite of myself.

                              ***
 

The back wheels sagged under the weight of pine.  The Dendrobium stared at me from the passenger seat.  The purring had long ago changed over to vet-visit-like stillness.  I kept my yellow eyes forward, tried to focus on the endless expanse of freeway, but I couldn’t shake my doubts.

“You’ve done it again, Bean.  In over your head.  Just like the giant feather-toy debacle.”

It was nightfall as I approached the driveway.  It was my own home, but something seemed fishy, and not Friskies Seafood Medley fishy.

                             ***
 

I swung open the front door to find two intruders.  Claws out, I pounced on the couch with a hiss.  On my right flank, a man with a handlebar mustache lurched backwards.  I drew on all of my prior training with a laser pointer, but the consequences were much more dire than being unable to catch a shiny red dot.  Seeing my nine lives flash before me, I quickly pivoted and caught him with my back claws.

“Oh my,” he exclaimed with a disarming folksiness.

I retracted my claws and propelled forward toward the second intruder, the woman with the long hair. I spotted my landing on her left shoulder, but she ducked.  I landed with an embarrassing thud and quickly tried to pretend that I intended to land on the floor all along.  I glanced up to see the two of them smiling down at me.

“Your sister Lan Lan let us in.  We called ahead and Riley agreed to load the bark from your car to each of ours.  I think he’s probably doing that right now.”

“What do you want from me!?  Is this a set up!?”

I realized how paranoid I sounded only after the words escaped my mouth.  But why shouldn’t I be paranoid?  They seem perfectly nice, but this bark business is a rough trade.  I was getting in too deep. How can I claw out?

Griffin ambled down the stairs.

“Hey guys!  Do you have any treats?”

Griffin!  Where did she come from?

“Pet me!” she said to the strange woman. “And, do you have any treats?”

“You’ll have to excuse Griffin.” I said.  “She’s very…”

Griffin let out a loud cry before I could finish the sentence.

“Do you have any treats?  Will you pet me?”

Griffin seemed unfazed by their puzzled looks and lack of treats.  I looked at both of them and yawned. 

Griffin begging for treats.  No surprises here.

“Treats?  Please?  I haven’t had treats in months,” she pleaded.

I was about to correct Griffin and mention that she had several treats yesterday, and that our guests already said that they didn’t have treats.  But I let it go.

“I need more pets,” she said, angling her back into the guest's shin. “And do you have any treats?”

“We better get going,” the mustache man said. The lady with the long hair nodded and quickly packed her things.

We narrowly avoided a dicey situation, but it was just another day of living dangerously in the Cats and Catts house.

Orchid Room 2.0 -- The Chaos Before the Calm

Riley (left) and I would like to believe that we are entering the final phase of Orchid Room 2.0, but more work needs to happen.  We've completed the painting and are now in the process of putting things back together.  As I told my brother yesterday, it's like a plant store exploded in our house.  Trixie looked at the chaos yesterday and said something like "Where did we get all of this ... all of this ... stuff?" Bags of fertilizer, bags of crocking, bags of clay balls, bags of bark, bags of Styrofoam peanuts, plastic and clay pots, florescent lights, wire, and timers -- it looked fishy from a national security perspective (weapons of mass Dendrobium?) except for the trays of plants, copies of Orchids magazines, and cute kitties. 

Kentucky Orchids

The Kentucky Orchid Show last weekend was a ton of fun.  The speakers were exceptional and the Saturday dinner was outstanding.  The orchids?  Top-notch.  Check out this display from the Greater Cincinnati Orchid Society.  The center plant is M. clowesii grown by Jim Lurton.  He was also showing an impressive Dor. pulcherrima (hv. champorensis) 'Highjack' and a Phal. celebensis in the same display. 

You can't go wrong with a white Cattleya, but this one ('Arctic Star') shown by the Central Indiana Orchid Society was a delight.  Clear white petals, lacey lip, and yellow in the throat -- wow!


Are you up for another one?  How about this Habaneria erichmichelii 'Pink Cloud' AM/AOS by New Vision Orchids:

"And It's Calm Air Over Sunbeam, By a Nose"

 At least that's what I would expect the racehorse announcer to say if he were to look at my paint choices.  Or, if my paint choices were in a horse race.  Regardless, Sunbeam was much too yellow, so Trixie and I decided to go with a more muted color scheme.  Remember, this was a Labor Day project that I envisioned finishing in 48-72 hours.  I don't care that I already used the yellow - I just view it as practice.  How do you like Calm Air?

The horse race comparison is somewhat apt because I'm racing to finish this before I leave for Louisville Kentucky at the end of the week.  Louisville is home to both the Kentucky Derby and the Mid-America Orchid Congress Fall Meeting.  I'm attending the latter.


In other news, my Miltassia is starting to show off and Griffin remains a problem.

Frog Friday! Sunbeam Style

Riley reaches over the Philodendron to bat at the frogs.  I'm painting the orchid room Sunbeam yellow and taking off the popcorn ceiling.  It's a Labor Day weekend project that's stretched into the week.  As a result, we've moved the orchids to the kitchen area and the frogs in the office.  This has given the cats unprecedented access to the frog vivarium and Riley, especially, is taking advantage of it.


I don't have natural home decorating impulses, so sometimes it takes some kind of interference or change for me to realize the ideal place for everything.  The reviews are in and the new location for the frogs is a big hit.  They're staying.  Riley will keep them in line.

Thursday News Watch

Here's the orchid news that caught my interest this week:

* I recently stumbled upon this fantastic orchid blog from Gothenburg Sweden.  Check out this super cool (pun unavoidable) growing set-up designed especially for cool growers.  Those look like very happy plants!

* About Orchids has a nice post about Kefersteinia.  I was just reading about this genus in Frowine's Miniature Orchids.  As always, stunning pictures from the About Orchids crew.


* Are orchids still fashionable and coveted by celbrities? "Donna [Karan] likes orchids" her associate said.  So does Beyonce, apparently. 

* Here's a disturbing post about orchid poaching in Peru.

* Here's a more upbeat piece about an orchid enthusiast in Australian who compares orchid care to healthy relationships.  It's a nice sentiment, and we'll set aside the fact that some orchids thrive on neglect.

First and Last Blooms

 The photo on the left displays the last daylily bloom of the season in the Cats and Catts house.  It's an H. fulva plant, the most common daylily in the world, but it proves its utility here by giving us some color so late in the season.  This close-up doesn't convey the loneliness of this flower.  It's time for the daylilies to close down the flower shop for the year and recharge for 2011.

Elsewhere in the plant kingdom, things are just getting started.  I took the photo on the right today, too.  My Miltassia Charles Marsden Fitch 'Izumi' -- a favorite in my collection -- is showing off its first blooms.  It looks so much more healthy and robust than it did less than a year ago. 


Many orchids, with their Fall/Winter bloom habit, are a perfect way to compensate for the colder weather here in Zone 5. And the daylilies will be here again before we know it.

Happy Labor Day!

Griffin, Riley, and the rest of the Cats and Catts family wish you and your loved ones a Happy Labor Day!

The Case Against Buying More

The deeper I go into the orchid world, the more opportunities I have to buy orchids.  Just this week, I was hit with two amazing opportunities from my Orchid Society.  The first offer included a long list of hard-to-find species that next month's speaker will have for sale.  The other offer was for $5 near-blooming Cattleya hybrids.  How could I resist?

We had our first evenings in the low-50s this week, so I've started to bring in some of the orchids in from their summering.  Doing this has made me realize how much they've grown and how much juggling I'm going to have to do to group plants with similar watering and light needs.  The photo above doesn't include my five largest plants, and it doesn't include any of my slipper orchids, which now outnumber the Cattleyas if I'm not mistaken.  This put the orchid bargains in a new light.  It's hard to pass on $5 Cattleyas of any size, but the act of deleting the email offers led me to think harder about the economics of my orchid collection.  Here are a few concepts I've been twisting around in my head.  Economics is way out of my depth, much like Greek mythology.  But I saw "Tango and Cash" about twenty-five years ago, so I'm not completely ignorant of the world of economics.  The sound was off, but I think I got the idea.

Hidden Direct Costs 
The plant is only five dollars but if it's bare-root you need to add a dollar or two to the cost because you'll need a clay pot and potting medium.  Then we need to look at water and watts.  I never thought about watering as a cost when I only had five orchids.  Now, I realize it all adds up.  Also, light is a limited resource in my growing set-up.  I have my high-light Brassavolas and Cattleyas in the front and my Paphiopedilums behind them, under a mix of regular florescent bulbs and CFLs.  Another plant takes me closer to needing another 40W CFL bulb.

Opportunity Costs
It's easier to add to your collection when you have a greenhouse, but windowsill growers need to be a little snobbier.  With the $10 I might spend on the two catts, I have to think "what else could I spend that money on?"  If the $10 was already designated as orchid money you could think of it as 1/6th of a truly special orchid, or 1/10th of an orchid show registration fee.  I heard a judge in our Orchid Society say something to the effect of "I think it's better to learn to grow a few types of orchids well than to grow multiple types in a mediocre way."  The flip side of this, of course, is that it's hard to learn what orchids you like and what orchids work well for your growing conditions if you don't experiment with different genera and species.  The $5 Cattleya might come in handy if your collection is full of Phals, but spatial constraints have made my want list more and more specific.

Labor
Do you remember when you had two or three plants and you could do all of your watering under the sink in five or ten minutes?  I know.  It's becoming a fading memory for me, too.  Each little addition to the family is a new mouth to feed and a new set of roots to irrigate.  And they grow up so fast!  The plant will eventually need repotting.  I will eventually need to locate a good spot for it outside when spring arrives.  I love repotting as much as the next guy, but the $5 Cattleya is less of a bargain if I place a dollar amount on my time.  I would rather stare at them than fuss with them, especially since the amount of time I spend on the former leaves little time for the latter.

The next time you get that orchid-hoarder impulse, stop and think about these downstream economic consequences.  The orchids already in your collection will thank you. 

The House of Orchids

I like house music and orchids, so one of my random Google searches took me to "The House of Orchids," a poem by George Sterling.  Sterling was a key figure in the early-20th century Northern California bohemian scene.  He helped develop an artist colony in Carmel and ran around with folks like Jack London and Nora May French.  San Francisco has a park named after him and Berkeley named Sterling Street in his honor.  I had never heard of him before.


Not being much of a reader of poetry, I have no profound insights into The House of Orchids.  I think he really liked orchids.  My literal-minded reading of the poem has him walking through a greenhouse and tripping out on the various flower forms and colors.  Now that I know he was based in Northern California, I can picture a lot of cool-growing Cologenes and Miltoniopsis in the collection.  I envision a harlequin Phalenopsis upon reading the line "And thou, most weird companion, thou dost seem Some mottled moth of Hell."  And I think we've all seen an orchid flower "Red as Adonis' wound it seems."


At times, the poem felt like a Rush song (compare, for instance, "A ghost of fragrance whose elusive hands Touch not the hidden harp of memory" with "As a mad and immortal man, Escape these Caves of Ice, for I have dined on honeydew and drunk the Milk of Paradise.") 


Other moments of the poem fell outside my ken.  Like, exactly how pallid was Aphrodite's cheek?   What does "Where white Astarte strays" mean?  What's "Antares' light?"  It's all Greek to me.

But "The House of Orchids" has moments that will resonate with any orchid enthusiast, like:


"For mystery hath lordship here, and ye
Seem spirit-flowers born to startle man

With imitations of eternity

And hints of what the flowers of Heaven may be."

Sterling, like Nora May French before him, committed suicide by drinking cyanide.  I think he might have found a reason to live had he surrounded himself with flowers, creating his own house of orchids.