More Plant Events
The first one wasn't an actual "show," but a houseplant event at a greenhouse I've been interested in for a long time. It's far enough away that it was tough to justify the drive under normal circumstances, but this time of year just getting out and Going Places helps me a lot, so I invited my mom hoping to make a day out of it.
I...apparently did not take any pictures inside the place? A little bit of a shame, 'cuz the way they had their bigger mother plants displayed was nice. There were just enough people though that trying to avoid photographing people w/out their permission was too difficult.
There was a lady there who had a mini aussie with her that looked just like my old dog Holly as a puppy...Her name was Peaches...Still thinking about Peaches... Peaches...
The greenhouse had advertised Alocasia Micholitzianas, but by the time I got there, they were all gone. u_u They had a lot of tiny plants that were clearly JUST out of tissue culture. That's been an interesting-sounding challenge to me, but with the prices I couldn't justify it. Maybe someday I will get so powerful I will just try to tissue culture my own plants??
This was labelled as a Calathea "Shinestar" I'm...not sure it is? I will have to wait and see. I've been wanting a Roseopicta-variety Calathea for a while (I have a Medallion on my wishlist page 'cuz it is SUPPOSEDLY the most common one). This little plant was in the greenhouse's clearance section for $4.
I've repotted it and took all the rotten bits I could find out. It was already pushing out like, 6 new growth points before I did that. I have enough experience with Calatheas and know how resilient they are that I feel pretty confident that it will bounce back. I've never really done a rehab though, so it feels like an interesting challenge.
We stopped at a little giftstore on the way back. There was dog named Benny there. He had a crunched up plastic waterbottle as a toy and forced my mom to spend 5 minutes throwing it for him. I will be thinking of him...
From that point we came across ANOTHER random greenhouse that was open. This one had such a hole-in-the-wall vibe to it, I don't know how to describe it... I don't know why I didn't take any pictures... I think I was too busy taking everything in 'cuz of how maximalist it was. Most of their plant selection was a little bit sad in the very normal "sat in a midwest greenhouse for a few weeks too long in February" vibe, but their POT SELECTION was INCREDIBLE. I think what they were doing was taking normal kitchen ceramics and drilling holes in the bottom of them. But that is so wonderful to me. All of the designs were so interesting and unique and not blandly minimalist like most plant pots. I spent about an hour picking out my favorite to buy. It's a white pot with little blue kitties on it. I don't have a picture, but you will see it around on here eventually. Excited to use it.
We stopped at a couple more stores my mom really likes (but lives too far away from to normally go to). Then we ate at one of her favorite restaurants. She was clearly in a good mood by the end of the day, it was really nice... At the tail end of the meal I found a fricking TOMATO SEED in my hot chocolate, but we were both in such a good mood that all either of us could do was burst out laughing about it.
I don't actually have a lot of experience with orchids. Mostly because of how expensive they are. But, y'know, getting out of the house. I figured I could get away with just admiring a bunch of pretty flowers and probably maybe not buying anything.
And BOY there were a lot of really pretty flowers.
The market part of the event was SO crowded. I wanted to get a look at the whole show before theoretically buying anything, but stuff was selling out SO fast that everything under $20 that I was interested in was gone by the time I swung back around to it an hour later. Disheartened and physically stressed out at this point by how crowded it was (living in a ""post-COVID"" world, there is just a certain level of Too Many People that I just can't seem to tolerate anymore), I went and walked around the greenhouse that was hosting the event for a while.
They had a mature Rhaphidophora Decursiva (one of my favorite plants). It had a $500 price tag hahaha... I always have a lot of trouble with my own one, so seeing this one was a reminder of like "yessss....this is a future that could be possible to meeee..."
There was a lady there selling really cute clay flower figurines (sculptures??). I think 'cuz I was so stressed out I forgot to swing back around and buy something from her...my main regret from this day.
Ecuagenera had a booth there and was selling a lot of rare aroids on top of their orchid selection. They had Anthurium Pallidiflorums, but they were $45....but seeing one in person made me realize...I probably DO legitimately want one of these...SOMEDAY... u_u
By this point I had kinda given up on the possibility of buying any actual plants, but my mom didn't like the idea of me leaving without anything, so she offered to buy me some. SHE...SHE WAS VERY PUSHY ABOUT IT.... (I appreciate it though.)
Erycina Pusilla. This was like the weirdest little plant at the show in terms of leafshape, imo. It reminds me of a little fan. I tried to pick out stuff I'd enjoy looking at, even if it wasn't flowering. (As I am typing this though it's starting to grow a flower spike :'D)
Dendrobium Aberrans. I really like the structure of this plant. It feels architectural. The flowers were just a nice bonus.
I am perpetually caught in a push-and-pull over tiny plants. I end up looking forward to potting them up a size so I don't have to water them as much, but then when they ALL get larger I just end up wanting more tiny plants. These miniature orchids are gonna stay basically this little for their whole lives though, so I've got some perma-tiny plants now. YAY!(?) 8D;; I feel like I've forced my own hand here lmfao...
Overall did not enjoy myself at the orchid show as much as the first event, but it was interesting to experience once!
In an ideal world all these orchid growers would have had little signs up next to the stuff they were selling to say how much humidity/etc they needed...or website links on the plant tags... I probably wouldn't have found trying to pick one out so stressful. I think if I ever want more mini orchids it'd probably be better to just...buy them online (so I can research first to make sure I can actually grow the plant).
