WELCOMING FALL WITH A CONTEST AND DRAWING

Fall is officially here in the Pacific Northwest. Nights are cooler. Days are shorter. We’ve started having the usual monsoon-like rainstorms. The fall crocuses have bloomed and gone, the cyclamens are starting their winter display, and the second, huge crop of brown turkey figs is getting ripe, almost as big as apples and dripping with sugary juice. There’s not much fall color yet, but there are tinges of red and yellow on some trees.

Now that the dismal winter season is just around the corner (at least in my hemisphere), it’s time to have another contest of wits and luck. Every so often, once a year, maybe, I check the statistics on my blog to see which posts have the most views. I’m always surprised by the results. As the years accumulate, some posts come and go, while others become perennial favorites.

To win this contest, you have to guess which 5 blog posts are the all-time favorites, in rank order. Whoever comes closest will win a 30 ml spray bottle of any of the 10 Olympic Orchids fragrances that are available in the new retail packaging. That’s probably the most valuable prize I’ve ever given away!

This contest will also keep you busy until next week when I get back from the orchid show in Seaside, Oregon and can post again. Enter your guesses, and stay tuned for another exciting contest soon.

So have at it, folks. Here’s a hint: you may find some clues in the posts relevant to the last contest of this type. 

[My photos. There's no trickery in the top one - the figs really are that gigantic due to all the rain we've had.]

CLUES FOR THE CONTEST

Now that I’m home again, I’ll get around to writing about my experiences in San Francisco, but first I’d like to announce that no one came close to guessing which posts got the most hits. Some titles that you mentioned were posts that I would like to have had get lots of hits, but that wasn’t the case. Those who guessed “Ambroxan and Not a Perfume” came close, since it’s somewhere in the top 20, but it’s not in the top 5.

Here are the clues:

Two posts deal with a food material and a perfume material.

One post deals with pruning of trees and shrubs

One post deals with a seasonal perfume and an orchid.

One post is about a small fragrant orchid flower and a perfume.

Happy hunting, and good luck!

[Puzzle picture from Wikimedia]

A CONTEST WHILE I'M OUT OF TOWN

I don't plan to post anything until I'm back from my San Francisco trip on the 11th, and it may be a few days before I get around to it even then, with catch-up to do after leaving the orchids in the care of a house-sitter.

To provide a little fun and games to brighten up your summer, I'd like to set up a contest. It goes like this:

In the two years that this blog has been in existence, what are the 5 posts that have received the most page views? Frankly, I was surprised when I checked. The person who comes closest to guessing will get a BIG gift package full of fragrant surprises. The second place person will get a medium box of fragrant surprises, and third place will get a little box of the same. If no one guesses any of them, I'll start giving clues to aid in the treasure hunt, and it will be over when it's over, i.e., when there are three people who correctly guess at least one to three of the most "popular" posts.

Over and out.

[Roulette photo from Wikimedia]

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ORCHID FRAGRANCE?

This is a contest for those of you who grow orchids or have encountered fragrant orchids at some point, and for those of you who have only experienced the so-called “orchid” note in perfume. Just post a comment naming your favorite fragrant orchid (the real flower) and describing its scent, or your favorite perfume that contains an “orchid” note, describing its scent. At the end of June, I’ll pick the winning entry. If there are not enough entries by then, the contest will be extended until there is some sort of quorum. If you are the winner, you will receive a gift set containing a 15 ml bottle of Red Cattleya Eau de Parfum and a matching soap. Check out the post on Red Cattleya to learn about the orchid flower that inspired the scent, the making of the perfume, and what it smells like.


Here's a picture of a miniature orchid whose name identifies it as being fragrant, Schoenorchis fragrans. The whole plant only has about a 5 cm (2 inch) leaf span, so the flowers are tiny. My plant, shown in the photo taken a couple of years ago, is blooming right now, a little jewel hanging in the sun room where I grow some of my plants. Surprisingly, the fragrance is not the traditional "orchid" note, but rather a light, fresh, green, aquatic scent. Like so many other orchids, its scent could be interpreted to make a wonderful perfume.

RED CATTLEYA

I thought it would be good to start today's post with a little bit of information about the orchid whose photo is shown in yesterday's post. One of my favorite hybrid orchids is Laeliocattleya Netrasiri. This plant is not much to look at in the summer, just a bunch of big, sprawling, succulent stems and leaves, but it miraculously bursts into bloom every year around the winter solstice with a profusion of velvety dark red flowers that are intensely fragrant. There is nothing better than these flowers to brighten up the dark, cold, rainy days of a Pacific Northwest winter. Goodbye, seasonal affective disorder! Hello tropical jungle!

Cattleya orchids are the kind that used to be used for the orchid corsages that were popular in the early to mid 20th century. Most of the orchids grown for corsage flowers were lavender or white, but cattleyas come in every imaginable color. Because they are pollinated by day-flying bees and butterflies, they are not only colorful, but emit wonderful fragrances that are strongest in the early part of the day. A few will switch to a totally different scent at night, but that’s a story for another time.

Red Cattleya was the second orchid fragrance that I attempted to formulate. The first orchid fragrance that I made was fairly simple, so I thought the scent of Red Cattleya would be just as easy to duplicate. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Most cattleyas have a characteristic soft, moist, floral, slightly fruity fragrance, but it is extremely elusive. It took many attempts to produce something that resembled the actual flower and was also wearable as a perfume. When I finally had a formula that seemed close, I considered it a major triumph. An especially nice feature of the formula that I finally came up with is that it works equally well in perfume or soap.

In terms of the scent, Red Cattleya has been described by those who have tried it as like walking into a hothouse packed with the most exotic orchid species, originally brought back by explorers from jungles all over the world. The blooming cattleyas envelop you with a cloud of soft, sumptuous fruity-floral fragrance that is incredibly sexy. The perfume notes include citrus, spices, peach, apricot, hyacinth, gardenia, violets and lilac. At the base is a dark current of musk, exotic woods and vanilla. This perfume was released for local sale in December 2009, and will be one of the signature Orchid Scents available on the website.

Watch for the upcoming orchid fragrance contest and post a comment for a chance to win a Red Cattleya gift set!