Presenting Showy Ladyslipper Orchid!! She started out with this unassuming foliage...
....with a hint of flowerbud peeking out...
....working on a kind of strip-tease here...
....and here she is! Ta-da!! I just bought this last fall from http://www.raisingrarities.com/ , and although it cost $45, I still didn't expect this kind of performance!
And look at the color on the interior of the pouch...kind of reminds me of a reverse-painted lamp, with the muted colors showing through from the underside.
But wait! Do my eyes decieve me, or is there another bud emerging above this flower? The show may not be over yet, after all! Hooray!!
14 comments:
what a beauty! I really enjoy the progression of photos, from bud to bloom.
love the frog too!
all the best, Bob
Cool! I found some foliage in the woods that looked similar, but I have a feeling the deer got to it before flowering. Did you use any deer protection on this one?
Love that 'tease'! They are unique aren't they!
Bob-thanks! It was really exciting watching the flower open up! As for the frogs-I love them so much that I refuse to clean up my "empty pot ghetto", because they sleep in there during the day. (Especially baby frogs-I bump any empty flowerpot and one jumps out. Probably why I see garter snakes hanging around amongst the pots so much, too.)
Entangled-yea, I spray the deer stuff on everything to be safe, especially with the bunnies chowing too.
Layanee-these are probably my very favorite flowers! I want to try and grow as many different ones as I can afford! :)
Wow, nice! I soooo wanted to find wild ladyslippers here on our property, but no go. Dang! They do grow elsewhere in this county.
I have to admit that in the back of my mind they are still possibly growing somewhere here that I just haven't found yet. :)
She's too pretty to have done a striptease... lol. Way too pristine, that one! :)
(Wow she's beautiful. I was thinking that her foliage looked like toad lily foliage with a twist, but then her flowers... damn. Well worth the money there.)
Very pretty - brings back memories of seeing them in the woods when I was a kid up north. Thank you for sharing!
Rurality-You may just find one, after all! I've found that these plants tend to "rest" if conditions aren't right, and you may see only foliage or nothing at all some years. I'd say any year there's plenty rain is your best bet to spot one (if deer don't eat it first).
Kim-yea, she does seem too much a lady to be stripping ;-) And I agree, it was absolutely money well spent!
Wicked-Heh, that's exactly how my addiction to this plant started; camping in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan with my old BF, and seeing these in the woods on Mackinaw Island. I just couldn't stop thinking about them!
Hi Lisa - your posts from the last few weeks are all interesting, but this one is making me croon... the ladyslipper is aweinspiring, and I covet the frogs!
You even managed to get great photos of the inchworm. But once I think 'inchworm' the mind-track of Danny Kaye as Hans Christian Anderson starts playing "Inchworm, Inchworm, measuring the marigolds". This probably means nothing to you but it's now stuck in my head!
Annie at the Transplantable Rose
Wow Annie-I hadn't thought of that song in ages!
You have an amazing touch with those orchids. I would be afraid to kill such an expensive plant.
Thank you Ki! The only reason I was brave enough to try growing one at all is the fact that I saw one growing near my home (so I knew the climate was right), and I already have a yellow ladyslipper sucessfully blooming a foot away from where I planted this one. I must say though-even if this hadn't grown, I just HAD to try!
Damn, blogger ate my comment.
You can get more Cypripediums here if you've got money to burn.
And good for you for going out on a limb. These are such awesome flowers.
Thanks for the link! I'm always looking for another place to spend money on plants! ;-)
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