The wand chooses the wizard, not the other way around.

11 years ago

I was watching a Harry Potter movie with my grand kids last night and was impressed that the wand chose the wizard, not the other way around. On the way home I thought that it is the same with orchids. At least with me, the orchids choose me, not me them.

I'm a heavy waterer who likes to douse everything every 2 to maximum 3 days. Some orchids love this, others hate it. Knowing this I have long ago concentrated on plants that like this and avoided others that don't. Since there are about 30,000 species and close to a million registered hybrids, there is no shortage of potential victims for me.

Another approach for me is to mount them, you cannot overwater mounted orchids. But even that does not work for some.

I go to our meetings with Maxillarias, Gorgonas, Pleurotallids and Masdevallias just to mention a few, with luxurious growth and an abundance of flowers and get hailed as a genius because of this. Others bring Dendrobiums covered with flowers which in my care wither and die. Even though I long for them I have long ago stopped wasting my money on them, they need to get dry between watering and that does not happen with me.

The point of this is to stop banging your head against the wall trying to grow stuff which does not like you and instead enjoy tremendous success with plants that thrive in the conditions you like to provide. Mother nature is the best orchid grower I know so simply research the environment a specific plant enjoys, if it's not what's the situation in your growing area, pass on that plant.

It's magic!!!!!!!!

Nick

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Comments (7)

garyfla_gw
11 years ago
Hi
Good advice !!! But seems the only way to learn that lesson is through failure ?? lol Of course as a wise gardener once told me "you'll never know if you can't grow something without killing at least one ?? lol gary
orchidnick
Original Author
11 years ago
The other advice is to go against the recommended culture if a plant simply is not thriving. I have taken several 'warm growing' plants out of the warm greenhouse and placed them in the cool greenhouse because they simply were not doing well. Some continued their downhill course but others turned around and are doing better. Before a plant succumbs in my care, I move it around trying to find a better place for it even if it's supposedly already in the optimum place.

A friend of mine, who has many plants, keeps the tag of every plant that succumbs in his care. He has been doing this for over 30 years and he no longer counts the tags, instead he measures the number of cubic feet occupied by them. How depressing!

One of my favorite movies, 'Moonstruck' has a scene where an older man has a glass of water thrown in his face by his unhappy younger companion. After she storms out, he tells the waiter to remove every trace of her from the table. When a plant commits the ultimate insult by dying in my expert care, I remove every trace of it. I also get rid of plants who are lingering and don't look happy. I give them away or take them to silent auction unless I suspect virus in which case I discard them.

Visitors to my place comment how my plants appear to be doing uniformly well. That is no accident, the unhappy ones are cast out into the wilderness after a couple of moves. I also clean house with genera I'm simply no longer interested in. One of my goals is to get rid of all of my Cymbidiums, give them away or sell them for $5.00 at silent auction, simply have no interest in them any more.

Life is too short, there is too little space available and they take too much work for undesirable plants to have a place at the table. There are so many who thrive and simply explode if they love your conditions, it's just a question of finding them. 'Undesirable' means either the plant does not like you or you don't like the plant. For the plant that means:In either case, don't let the door hit you in the a-- on the way out.

Nick
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terpguy
11 years ago
And sometimes just ignore advise all together. I can't tell you how many times I've done the equivalent of telling one friend in particular "Don't grow that cactus in low light", only to have this witch doctor of a friend get it to thrive and bloom. You never know unless you try. Sometimes the plants surprise you.
jane__ny
11 years ago
I reuse the 'dead tags.' I'm cheap and there's enough dead-tags to remind me not to grow that plant again.......

Jane
orchidnick
Original Author
11 years ago
I reuse them too. I make my own tags out of vinyl venetian blinds. Write on them with pencil. Can be easily removed and the tag reused.

Nick
westoh Z6
11 years ago
I'm a keeper... Have a 4" pot stuffed with my "learning experiences"... When I fill-up a 6" pot, I'll consider myself a real expert :-) I'm not exactly sure why I keep them, but I feel compelled to do so???

Used to keep them on a spreadsheet, the worksheet with the 'goners' was much longer than the good ones, which was really depressing, so I did stop tracking them that way a few years back.

Bob
Darlene (GreenCurls)
11 years ago
I used to keep a spread sheet of all of my orchids including the departed ones. After about 2 year, I gave it up. Listing the plants that died after just 2 years was bad enough. I could not imaging keeping track of them over 30 years regardless of the metric used.

All and all, I think most of my collection has chosen me. I don't have too many that have died on me. However, I could use more choosing to bloom for me. Maybe they are still deciding.

The wand chooses the wizard, not the other way around.

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The wand chooses the wizard, not the other way around.

Comments (7)

garyfla_gw

orchidnickOriginal Author

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terpguy

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