My Beautiful Healthy Orchids
If you ever get the chance to watch orchid nurserymen repot their overgrown orchid plants - do it! They have a special way of ramming fiber in with a stick until the pot is full and then of ramming in still more.
Watching an expert do this once or twice is the best way to learn. You’ll discover when and how to cut off the back pseudobulbs with a sharp knife and pot them separately. Thus you get new plants.
Besides repotting and watering, there’s need of airing the plants daily. Open a window or door in the next room and swing the case door wide open for a few minutes every morning.
Now come the extra favors that keep plants thriving and healthy. Turn pots regularly so that the greenery will grow straight. Keep leaves of adjoining plants from rubbing against each other. Scrub the outside of pots frequently so that air may get to the roots through the porous clay. Shine a 100 watt bulb a few hours each day on the plants at dusk on short winter days. Trim off brown leaves. Cut off rotted pseudobulbs and paint the scars with powdered captan.
The few tools necessary are tweezers for removing old, dead fiber; a sharp knife and scissors for pruning and trimming; plastic labels to identify plants ; an old toothbrush for scrubbing the foliage every month or so; a sponge for wiping off the leaves occasionally; a long spouted watering can, a humidity gauge and thermometer.
One more thing about orchids. Most people don’t realize it but orchid flowers and plants are wonderful to touch. The leaves and pseudo-bulbs have a kind of firmness and strength.
I grew up on the myth that orchids were fragile and that to touch a bloom was sacrilege. It isn’t at all! Run your hands up under the bloom, cupping your fingers around the petals. It will feel good, resilient, pliable, alive, vital!
Far from being delicate and difficult, orchids have a husky tropical love of life and urge to grow. Not even the steam heated climate of most houses quenches this.
Buy a plant by choosing for the great house plants. Watch it send out greenery and a flower spike or two. . Watch the blossoms unfold filling the house with fragrance.
Pretty soon orchid catalogues will be sprouting from your book shelves. You will be poring over the lore of Vanda caerulea, the blue orchid of India or other rare species from the Himalayas, and all the while, more and more orchids will fill your window.
Written by sillyfrank on December 19th, 2009 with
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