Transplanting Orchids With Help From a Son

Mom had mentioned to us a long time ago that she needed hapuu which is a Hawaiian tree fern. She needed its bark to transplant orchids that were outgrowing their pots. I decided to forget about it since she already had four or five pots of it and the bulbuls often come to dine on the buds anyway.

Therefore, when we saw a rather pricey bag of hapuu at the store, I tried to discourage Art from buying it. He insisted that we should get it for mom. I told him that she already said she can't do it anymore and someone else would have to do it. 

Art said he would do it.

Riiiight.... 🙄  He's got a bunch of bonsai plants that are no longer bonsai.

Art bought it anyway and the big bag of hapuu languished on our patio for months and months and months. When I passed by it the other day I saw weeds growing in the bag. 

I told mom and she said she'd completely forgotten how to repot orchids anyway.

"What?!?" 

I told my brother that his mother would love to have his help with the orchids. He'd been too busy with babysitting his grandchildren for a long while, but had some free time now, so he was happy to come over. Granted, he said it's something he's never done although he'd seen our father do it decades ago.

Mom was thrilled to be able to spend quality time with her son again. And here's what mom (who repeated that she no longer has any idea how to repot orchids anymore) said.

When we went out to the patio, she immediately said, "Wait! You need 20-20-20 orchid fertilizer."

"What?!? You never mentioned fertilizer." I showed her other kinds of fertilizer we'd bought her before, but she said it had to be orchid fertilizer.

I finally showed her the 16-16-16 which I told her had the same ratio. 

"No," she said. 

"The ratio is the same," said Dennis. "It should work I would think."

"OK," said mom. Do you see who she believes the most?

Art set up a chair for her so she could supervise and put a drop cloth on the ground to contain the debris.

"Wait," she said. "You have to get the smaller pots. You need gravel at the bottom."

Dennis complied and then started to add the hapuu.

"Wait, you have to put fertilizer at the bottom and mix it." Mom continued.

"You have to clean off the pots well and separate the orchids." Mom instructed. 

"OK, now add more hapuu," mom continued, "and put some rocks on the top."

And so it went. Dennis, ever the loving and wonderful son that he is, followed her advice (which she no longer insisted she couldn’t remember how to do) while also doing what he thought was best and managed to complete all the repotting.

Here are some of the freshly potted orchids.

WORD OF CAUTION: Please don't follow what mom said because it's not exactly what we've seen online. However, we'll see what happens. Dennis says he just hopes they don't all die at once.

In the end, the most important part, the best of the best part was that mom had her son's complete attention for a whole hour and that was golden!

Annual Kunia Orchid Show

It was time again for the Kunia Orchid Show on a very rainy, soggy Saturday. Mom loves orchids although she's given up raising a lot of them. She keeps a few and the bulbuls have taken pity on her and not bitten the buds off for a while.

Going to the annual orchid show is a truly special time for mom. She absolutely LOVES seeing all the new varieties that show up every year.

The orchid show is set up at Leilehua High School gym. We'd been given free tickets by one of my Zumba friends, but we gave a donation anyway. Door prize tickets were given out at the entrance.

A dizzying array of orchids of every kind greeted us and we didn't know where to start.

 There was a wonderful display of flower arrangements. It was surprising to see that a couple of the arrangements had cherry blossoms. Since the season is over in Hawaii I can't imagine where they got the blossoms. I took a close up photo to show they are indeed real blossoms!

Mom loved every minute and was constantly telling us what we should photograph.

We couldn't quite figure out why the plant on the left was so unusual. We loved the very, very teeny orchids on the right.

 Isn't this bottom asymmetrical purple orchid weird? 

The cascading orchids were fun to see.

This bottom one had unusual coloring.

The Floating Jelly-Fish were just sea urchin shells with tallansia air plants growing out of the bottom. I thought that was a rather clever idea. The Chinese Lantern plants were pretty too.

It was very difficult to choose which orchids to feature on this post.

Door prize numbers were called out during the orchid show.

Can you believe we won this $20 orchid plant? It's a coelogyne pandurata orchid. We were surprised that it was actually an orchid. The leaves looked more palm like.

It was still raining when we left the high school. A short jaunt to Shige's Saimin Restaurant where mom could have her favorite wun tun min made for a very perfect Saturday outing.

Sunday Adventure #1: Orchids! Orchids!

We had only two more full days with Jon and Sarah so we had to make the most of Sunday.  I've decided to divide the Sunday adventures into three posts because it was too busy a day.

Photo taken by me

Art's friend, Ed surprised us with tickets to the 58th Annual Orchid Show at Leilehua High School so we started the morning by going to Wahiawa. 

We were surprised to see the gymnasium full of orchid displays.

Photo taken by Sarah

We could hardly wait to start taking photos.  Mom was so excited that she kept pointing out blooms that she wanted us to record.

We told her to select a plant to bring home, but she refused.  She said the bulbuls would just eat the buds anyway and upset her.

Photo taken by Art or Sarah

Jon loved watching his grandmother so excited about all the unique and interesting orchids.

Photo taken by Sarah

Mom was excited and euphoric to be around so many beautiful flowers.

Photo taken by Alyn Nishioka

One of the orchid presenters came out of his booth and offered to take our photo.  His name was Alyn Nishioka and we discovered he was a professional photographer.  I asked him if he knew our photographer friend, Dave.  He did... very well.  Then I asked him if he knew my brother, Dennis.  He knew him also.  This is such a small island.  Art asked him if we could take his photo and he laughingly set up a photo.  He asked to take my camera.

Photo taken by Art

The caption could read:  "You're taking photos of my gorgeous orchids with this cheap camera?  Get your brother over here."

I think Sarah took this photo.

Then something caught mom's eyes and she let out a whoop.

Photo taken by Jon and his fancy camera

 Yup... a walking flower basket.

Photo taken by me

Mom thought the leaves on this orchid plant were really interesting. 

Photo taken by me

 I thought this flower was really striking.

Photo taken by Jon

Photo taken by Jon with the above mentioned camera

Photo taken by Jon

Photo taken by Jon

I'm sorry I didn't copy the names of all the different orchids.  We just enjoyed their beauty.

Photo taken by Jon

Photo taken by Art

 This green anthirium really caught our eye.  I've never seen one this green before.

Photo taken by Jon

There were also bonsai demonstrations that were taking place.  That was a lot of fun to watch.

I took this one!

This orchid was declared the winning Best in the Show (C. amethystoglossa) and it was certainly pretty and unusual compared to the other beauties.

After nearly a couple of hours we had to leave because there were a whole lot more to accomplish on this Sunday!

2016 Annual 62nd Kunia Orchid Show

Once again a friend at tai chi offered us tickets to the Kunia Orchid Show which is held  at the Leilehua High School gym.

We've been taking mom to this orchid show for several years now because she's always loved orchids. She used to raise them until bulbuls decided they rather enjoyed plucking the buds off. They don't eat them. They just like to bite them off.

 As soon as we entered the gymnasium, mom was off like a flash trying to look at every flower and pointing out the ones she liked.

The bonsai club we belong to was there with demonstrations and displays.

This first teeny bonsai tree is a magnolia. The last one is a lone azalea.

Then there were the different types of floral arrangements. The one with the Legos was quite interesting.

 There were a number of these hanging type orchids.

 The variety of colors and shapes was pretty incredible!

These miniatures were really, really tiny. I should have put my finger next to it so you could see the relative size. The one on the left was a First Place winner.

This was the Unusual Orchid category.  And yes, they were definitely unusual.

For some reason mom liked the green colored orchids. She was quite busy telling us which photos we should be taking.

I rather liked these fuzzy orchids and sweet pink ones.

Everybody at the show seemed to be smiling and having a wonderful time. Like us, many brought their cameras.

Art noticed that our iPhone took just as good photos as my big Canon camera.

A friendly lady stopped us and asked if we'd like our photo taken. She said she couldn't help noticing how much mom was enjoying all the flowers.

Eventually, we did have to tear ourselves away to have our favorite saimin lunch at Zippy's.

When we returned home mom was smiling from ear to ear saying, "This was such a wonderful day."

It was.

2013 Kunia Orchid Show

Our friend, Ed gave us tickets to go to the Kunia Orchid Show which was held at Leilehua High School in Wahiawa.  Last year, our son Jon and Sarah were here so we went together.

It rained last year.  It was raining again this year when we went to pick up my brother, Dennis.

The flower show was set up in the high school gymnasium.

Orchids were also for sale.  Although mom loves orchids, she didn't feel she could give them the expert care they needed.

 

The variations were amazing. 

 

This green anthurium was called Midori which is green in Japanese.

There was also a bonsai exhibit and demonstration.

The miniature orchids were adorable.

Some of the orchid coloring was hard to capture on our cameras.

The display on the top photo showed the best orchids in the show.

This purple orchid was Dennis' favorite.  I can't remember which was mom's favorite.  She was like a child in a candy store, pulling us along and telling us to take a photo of every orchid that caught her eye.

I rather liked that fluffy white orchid.

I'm not so sure if I agreed with the best in the show.  It was really hard to capture the subtle pink coloring.

After spending a couple of hours there, we went back into the rain to have lunch at the Ginger House (Chinese restaurant) in Mililani.

All in all, it was a wonderful Sunday!