IF YOU’RE NOT BEHIND, YOU’RE NOT LOOKING FORWARD

Thanksgiving is over and the light is suddenly visible at the end of the dark fall quarter tunnel. There’s only one more week of teaching, a few more exams, grading tasks, committee meetings, reports, and presentations, and then it’s all over for a couple of weeks as I recover from the insanity that was fall and prepare for the slightly less hectic winter quarter. In less than a month, days will start getting longer again. For the short break between classes and the increasing light that will come after the winter solstice, I’m thankful.

The other day I was talking to a colleague who, like me, was feeling really depressed and overwhelmed by the fact that we’re always so behind in everything. In academia with its chronically high demands mixed with elastic deadlines, being behind is a way of life that we all accept. Long ago I reconciled myself to never catching up, and realized during that conversation that there’s no way any of us can ever catch up because if we did, it would mean that we had no plans. I said to my colleague, “if you’re not behind, you’re not looking forward”, and that has become my new motto. Maybe it doesn’t help get things done, but at least it makes me feel better. For my inexhaustible ability to rationalize, I’m thankful.

As if in celebration of the season, Cattleya labiata is in full bloom, with its big, frilly, exquisitely delicate, lavender flowers, the prototypical old-fashioned corsage orchid. Its fragrance is powerful, with the plant pumping it out 24 hours a day, a sweet-spicy marzipan-fruity-floral during the day and a spicy ylang-ylang type scent at night. This orchid obviously wants the attention of both pollinator groups, the bees by day and the moths by night. I’m thankful that even in the darkest time of winter there are fragrant orchids blooming.

I’ve spent a lot of time over the Thanksgiving holiday filling orders and making stock bottles of perfume. My problem has always been that I can never catch up on making stock and often have to fill bottles at the time I get an order. This is not an efficient way to operate, so over this long weekend I have been making large batches and filling and boxing a lot of bottles all at once. Yesterday we cleared off two more shelves to store stock bottles. Once the process is complete, this should help cut down on the time that elapses from when an order is placed until the time it’s shipped. It will also make my life much easier. For my cozy studio and the fact that parts of it are finally getting organized so that I can spend time creating new fragrances, I’m extremely thankful.

So that’s the way it is - Thanksgiving in Seattle, dark and gloomy as another winter storm moves in. 

[Top two photos are mine, bottom photo of Mount Rainier and crows adapted from a random news photo that I downloaded several years ago.] 

CHRISTMAS ORCHIDS

It’s just a coincidence, but imagine waking up on Christmas morning to find that three of your biggest orchids have burst into bloom overnight, and one of your smallest. Well, that’s what happened in my greenhouse. The red cattleya of perfume fame has been pumping its buds full of juice, dripping sugar, and gearing up to go for a couple of weeks now. Today three of its eight buds are suddenly open, and the others will be open by the end of the day. Last year it had seven flowers, this year it has eight. The plant and flower stalk are almost three feet (1 m) tall.

The other big cattleya that opened its buds last night is Cattleya labiata, a species that I raised from a tiny seedling. This is its first bloom, with just three flowers, but they’re full-sized with lavender petals and a frilly, striped, “landing-strip” lip. I included my hand on the flower stalk to give an idea of the size of these standard cattleya flowers. Neither of the cattleyas has started to produce fragrance yet, but I’m looking forward to enjoying the real red cattleya again and finding out what labiata smells like.

Chysis bractescens opened its buds, too, revealing its fleshy, creamy white flowers with a yellow lip. These flowers are already starting to produce their gourmand bourbon vanilla- with narcissus scent.

The fourth orchid that opened its buds overnight is Sophronitis cernua, a miniature mounted plant that I am displaying in the house hanging on the pot of the Cattleya labiata. It has two clusters of three flowers each, the brilliant red-orange flowers contrasting perfectly with the green leaves. Unfortunately, these flowers have no fragrance.


The solstice is a prime time for some orchids to bloom. Phalaenopsis are mostly winter bloomers. Right now one of my favorite hybrid phals is in bloom, Brother Yew x Carmela’s Spots. I generally don’t like hybrid phals, but this one is a cream color with so many tiny maroon stipples all over that it looks solid maroon color from a distance. Its lip is a deep maroon. The reason why it’s my favorite hybrid is because it’s strongly fragrant, with a rich, citrusy, floral-perfumey scent that it dispenses in large quantities during the day.

Also blooming are Phalaenopsis amabilis,with solid white flowers, Phragmipedium bessae, another orchid with brilliant orange-red flowers, Dendrobium laevifolium, a mini with red-purple flowers, and Dendrobium hercoglossum, a midsize plant with a multitude of lavender-pink flowers. This last one doesn’t really count, since it blooms all the time, but the number of flowers does peak around the solstice.

All in all, it’s a good day for orchids.