Name:	Oncidium Sharry Baby	Seed parent1:	Oncidium Jamie Sutton
Date acquired:	Fall 2002	Pollen parent:	Oncidium Honolulu
Source:	Home Depot (grower unknown)	Season:	All
Container:	12" clay pot	Climate:	Intermediate

25 January 2003

12 March 2004

19 September 2004

I got this Oncidium (which I later deduced was the popular Sharry Baby) on a whim at the local Home Depot because it was so healthy and it had a hundred buds and a handful of flowers on it at the time.  One of the nice things about living in the Chicago area was that it was surrounded by local orchid growers.  With good timing, I could pick up high quality plants for less than what some growers would normally charge.  The trick was to make sure that the plants were new, since few floral department employees can ever take care of orchids well.

This plant has flowered faithfully several times a year since I got it.  When it flowered this past spring, it opened one flower stalk with 150 flowers and followed up with another 50 on a second flower stalk as the first one faded.  When this orchid is in full bloom, it will fill the room with a thick vanilla fragrance during the late morning hours.  While it doesn't hang on to all its flowers as long as some other plants, it will still be covered in flowers for a long time because it opens so many of them on a flower stalk.

This is no small plant, either.  When I first got this plant it was overflowing a six-inch pot and it's now ready to move out of its eight-inch pot.  I'm actually contemplating dividing it, since it's starting to grow up and all over itself.  Recently it opened about 60 flowers on a single stalk, despite the fact that the flower stalk was damaged early in its development.

Click on the thumbnails to view detailed images.

References:
(1)  International Orchid Register: www.rhs.org.uk/plants/registration_orchids.asp