Adventures in orchids -- Wallflower Day, 14th of Windy, Year 225

[neotoma]

A friend and I went to Behnke's today for the orchid clinic. My tiny phalaenopsis orchids are just grocery stores plants, but the woman running the clinic said they were in fairly good condition -- one of them had a purple-ish 'blush' which is common to healthy orchids with high anthocyanin genetics. She changed out the sphagnum moss and said that the one that had already lost its flowers might send out a new spike as it is still flowering season and it did have a terminal and axial bud visible.

So now I have more information about keeping them alive (including don't water until the sphagnum is dry and crunchy as dry Cheerios), so I hope to keep these little plants going. They're certainly a bit of bright cheer -- along with my begonia, which is on its second year -- in the end of winter.

I did pick up a few pansies and johnny-jump-ups to put in the flowerbeds. They won't survive when the summer heat comes, but they'll be a bit of color until then as well.

Also, I did actually smell a wallflower in the greenhouse. It smelled amazing, like a fruit candy!

Comments

[fyrdrakken]

Got a friend who's gotten into orchids and she found they're easier to keep alive and healthy if she just puts them directly into water, no soil. The photos are certainly interesting, in clear glass so you can see the roots in the water. (I can't provide any first-person experience since I'm holding off on buying any orchids. I'm already at the more-pots-than-are-convenient-to-water stage, and am consoling myself that quite a few of them are just until-the-plant-goes-into-the-ground or until-the-plant-does-its-thing-and-dies-back.)