Portagrow: ON THE GO!

Hello again from Portagrow!  It's been awhile since our last post; we've been very busy changing our location and getting settled into our new space.  We are still located in Golden Colorado but our new location has more room for our plants, greenhouse, and operations.

The title of this post is Portagrow ON THE GO! because this month and next we will be involved in two Orchid Society shows.  One is the Denver Orchid Society spring show, themed: "The Orchid Round-up" at Tagawa Gardens Center, 7711 S Parker Rd Centennial Colorado 80016.  Follow this link for more information: http://denverorchidsociety.org/shows.html  The show opens on Saturday March 10th and runs through Sunday March 11th.  The DOS will be selling many varieties of beautiful orchids at the show.  They were provided by Fantasy Orchids http://www.fantasyorchids.com in Louisville Colorado,Enthropic Orchids http://enthropicorchids.com/ located in Denver Colorado, and New Earth Orchids http://www.newearthorchids.com in Sante Fe, New Mexico.  Portagrow will be selling orchids also from our display with all profits going to the Denver Orchid Society.

There are several front range orchid society displays and also many DOS member displays, all offer beautiful orchids to see and photograph.  The displays are set up and ready to go, so please come see us this weekend at the Denver show.

Portagrow will also be on the road this spring; we are off to Wichita, Kansas for the spring Kansas Orchid Society Show & American Orchid Society Member Meeting.  Follow this link for more information about the show:  http://www.kansasorchidsociety.com/OrchidShows/Showindex.html
This show should be a great event with eleven vendors, including Portagrow, selling some of the best orchids from around the country.  There should be a large variety of plants to see as well as many fantastic displays.  An orchid lovers dream show!  We are looking forward to being a part of this large national show, our first, and surely not our last.  Please come see us at the show!

Below are just a few pics of my spring bloomers, many more still in spike: 

   

Utah Orchid Society Spring Show

Portagrow exhibit at Red Butte Gardens

We had the opportunity recently to take our Portagrow Indoor Growing Environment exhibit on the road to the Utah Orchid Society's Spring Show at the Red Butte Gardens in Salt Lake City.  We had a great time at the show and felt very welcomed by the Utah members we met there.  A big thank you to Sean Quealy with the UOS, for all his assistance in making this show a success for us.  We got a lot of positive feedback from the people who saw our exhibit in Utah, and sold several growing stands and greenhouses during the show.  We also saw some beautiful plants, and, much like the Fall show in Denver, we met some great photographers and were able to persuade them to let us share their photos with you on our blog.

Portagrow exhibit at Denver Spring Show

Since we didn't have a chance to tell you about the Spring Show for the Denver Orchid Society, we will combine some words and pics about both on this blog.  The Denver show was held at Paulino's Gardens, and there were some truly memorable plants exhibited there.  Unfortunately you only get to see our amateur photography of the Denver exhibits.

Phrag. "China Dragon"

Epicat "Rene Marquez" "Flame Thrower"

Incredible colors

Elegant shapes

What a beauty!

Cattleya "Beautiful Sunset"

View from Red Butte Gardens

 The Utah show was held in the stunning Red Butte Gardens, a beautiful glass pavilion with incredible views of the mountains and a really wonderful place to spend a weekend in Salt Lake City.  We took a few minutes to walk around the outdoor gardens at Red Butte before the show, and although little was in bloom yet, it was still very evident that this is a spectacular botanic garden.  There was one area with thousands of beautiful yellow, purple and pale blue/white tiny flowers blooming, and only after we got very close could we see that they were all tiny miniature iris!  Each flower was about the size of a nickel.  They were really 
wonderful.

Small daffodils with tiny iris

Tiny yellow Iris

Tiny silver white iris

Tiny purple iris

We met a couple of wonderful photographers at the Utah show who have kindly agreed to share their work.  Jill Spriggs has an eye for the wonders of the macro lens especially when applied to Phaphs and Phrags.  She writes a facinating blog about all things floral at http://jillthinksdifferent.blogspot.com.
You can also reach her about her photographs at  jillspriggs@gmail.com.

Doug Johnson's photos have a wonderful abstract quality to them that many of us, who are fascinated by the wonder of orchid structures and colors, appreciate.   Thanks to both Doug and Jill for sharing their work.

A time to spike!

This season I've tried to pay particular attention to the advice of other orchid growers, both personal acquaintances, and those who post on Internet forums and websites about how to fertilize, water and care for specific types of orchids.  Taking care to treat each species the way it prefers to be treated.  In the past I've always grouped many different types of orchids together and hoped for the best but this year I wanted to see if it made a difference.  Guess what; it has.  

In my own indoor greenhouses I've tried to create micro climates for the different types of plants that I have.  I have a warm, temperate greenhouse, and a cooler less humid greenhouse.  The warm greenhouse uses the HDS system to create extra humidity and stays at about 70% with a temperature range from a low of 62 at night and 75 during the day while the cooler greenhouse relies on the humidity created by transpiration and standing water in the Humidi-Grow trays.  It stays at about 45% humidity with a temperature range from a low of about 58 at night to a high of 70 during the day.  The plants that I keep in the warm greenhouse consist of Cattleya, Oncidium, Zygopedilum, Dendrobium, Epidendrum, Brassia, Vanda, Miltonias, and a few assorted species orchids.  I have them arranged by light needs as well as day time temperature preferences which is achieved by placing them on the correct tier of the grow stands.  In the cooler greenhouse I keep the Phalaenopsis, Paphiopedilums, and the Odontoglossums.  

I also keep several of my Phals growing in southeastern windows where the night time temperatures can drop into the high 50's.  I have been fertilizing them all with quarter strength fertilizer that has a high nitrogen content about once a month and watering just a bit more than usual.  I'm typically a low water orchid grower, erring on the side of "less water is better".

  

The result of all this extra effort and specific care has started to pay off.   The majority of my orchids have spiked in the last two months and have some of the most healthy spikes they've had in years.  At least 3/4 of my phals have spiked, some that haven't bloomed for a couple of years.  My most difficult Miltonia has four spikes on it.  An Oncidium I've been nursing for many years has it's first spike since I brought it home, and many of my Cattleya's have sheaths on them.  A miniature Vanda has already started blooming and I'm anticipating that the Brassia's and Epidendrum will all spike in the next month or so.  

So, it has been an interesting few months here at Portagrow, not only with the beginning, and continued sales of our products but also with continued experimenting with my own orchids and their environments.  It should be an exciting spring as our house fills with the beautiful splashes of color our orchids provide.

Portagrow custom design installation

We've been busy here at Portagrow!  We have had several local orders where we have gone to our customers homes to install their new Indoor Growing Environments.  We decided to offer local buyers this option after having several requests during the Denver Orchid Society's Fall Orchid Show.

We installed a Six Tier Grow Stand and Pocket Greenhouse one day last week for an orchid hobbyist who after 20 years of growing has decided she wants to grow some more difficult orchids and loved the idea of the indoor growing environments that Portagrow provides for her new experiments.

We were also recently hired to design and build a set of custom grow stands to be used with a customer's existing 48"x32" hydro trays.  She has been growing orchids for roughly 35 years and has experimented with many types of growing areas, from large scale greenhouses where she kept her 1500+ prized orchids to window sills and everywhere in between.  She has been reducing her collection to her most loved plants and was having difficulties allowing the room to cool down at night.  The heat generated by her HID light was overheating the room.  She was also struggling with too much humidity in her basement growing room and starting to see signs of mildew on the drywall walls.

By using Portagrow's  highly efficient, high output, cool running, T5 fluorescent grow lights and stands we will be reducing the heat generated by the grow lighting significantly, as well as reducing the energy consumption of the old HID light we replaced.  We also were able to contain the majority of the humidity within the Pocket Greenhouses, maintaining a comfortable growing environment for her plants while protecting the rest of her home from too much humidity.

The project consisted of two custom stands for her four hydro trays, a six tier grow stand and three pocket greenhouses.  Each of the grow stands incorporated a Humidity Distribution System (HDS).  The set-up was designed to hold her 250 -300 orchids in controlled environments inside her existing growing room.

We are all excited about the set-up and will share more about it in the future.  It is our largest single project to date and look forward to the possibility of creating others like it.

Here are some pictures of the project.  We will also be posting a video or two of it on You Tube soon.