My beauties have another home

Each time I move I say the same thing: the hardest part is saying goodbye to my plants. When I left Lahore I was lucky: two of the most loving and giving people I've ever known adopted our plants, and the plants are thriving in their new home. Four years on, I'm moving again. This time too I've been lucky to know a couple who'll look after them with love and probably more expertise than I had.

But it doesn't make letting go any easier.

Here's a sampling of the orchids that blessed us with their beauty and spirit.

This one I call "bunny ears," though apparently it has a proper name. I admit to favoring this plant a wee bit more than the others, because the damn thing NEVER stopped blooming, not once in the two years we had it. Rain or shine. It just about convinced me that I could grow orchids, though I never had to do anything except admire it. And take pictures. This is soon after we got it. (It isn't clear in the picture but here it only had two "branches")

And this is just six months and about seven branches later:

By the time we parted, it had about twelve branches, ALL of which were blooming. The happiest plant I've ever owned.

Other beauties include this fragrant dangling orchid which we called the hippie plant (also known as "some kind of dendrobium"):

I picked this one up by chance right after a doctor's appointment. (Hawai'i may be the only place in the world where orchids are sold two doors away from a clinic.) Each "petal" is super tiny and cute.

The sweetest shade of yellow -- a different sweetest shade of yellow each of the three years it bloomed:

Green orchids -- who knew? We won it at an auction.

This one smells like chocolate, vanilla, and cinnamon all rolled into one:

Art shot of the youngest of the lot. It not only made me feel that I can grow plants, but that I can also photograph them:

May they all live long and shine.