orchid killer...

tiny · Dec 1, 2010

I have had quite a few orchids over the past years. I see them in the market displaying their flamboyant and sometimes aggressive blooms and I just melt. I love them. But they hate me. I have never once kept an orchid alive past the first flowering.

So, though it may not seem like a big deal, it's huge to me that I looked into the jar where my latest victim is this morning and saw a flower stalk emerging from the new leaves I've been nursing along these past months.

I'm way more excited than I should be.

kinshipknight · Dec 1, 2010

Yeah, I think they're pretty hard to grow. Good luck!

Tepelus · Dec 1, 2010

I've only tried one orchid, and I ended up killing it. I don't think I gave it the right conditions to grow, a bit too fussy for me. And even if I wanted to try another one, I'd have a battle to keep my cats away from it, since they love chewing on all of my plants and hacking up the chewed up parts. I'm pretty good at growing plants, indoor and outdoor, I've even been hybridizing daylilies for the past three years (not hard at all to do), and though I love orchids, they're so beautiful in flower, I probably won't ever try another, unless I have the right indoor growing conditions for them.

tiny · Dec 1, 2010

You know, all I did was put it in a big jar with no lid. I set it up like a terrarium with charcoal, pumice stone, and orchid soil in layers. Once a week I look to see if there's a bit of water in the bottom and if there is I leave it alone. Seems to be working. I hope to have blooms by Christmas. If I'm successful with it, I'll get another jar and another orchid.

I love plants.

Tepelus · Dec 2, 2010

I love plants too, and during the summer I'm always outside tending to my gardens, when I'm not too exhausted from work. This year we had our old garage torn down and are still waiting, though very impatiently now, for the new one to be built. I'm planning what I want to plant around it. On the shady sides will go my hostas (I have about a hundred different cultivars) along with other shade loving plants (I'm going to give Himalayan Blue Poppies a try, though I know I'll probably fail). On the sunny side will go mostly native wildflowers I'm going to start from seed this winter by sowing them in milk jugs and leaving them outside, where in the spring they'll sprout and already be hardened off, so I can plant them when they're big enough. I'm aiming for that bed to be a hummingbird/butterfly garden. Every year I add new hostas or daylilies to my collection, and start new babies from the seeds I've collected from plants I've crossed. This year I'm hoping for blooms on those I crossed three years ago, it takes about that long for a daylily to bloom from seed, and I'm excited to see the results. Just got to get through winter, which has just started, to get back to being outside in my gardens.

robeiae · Dec 2, 2010

Orchid killer...

Isn't that a Talking Heads song?

tiny · Dec 2, 2010

Is it? I never liked Talking Heads.

tiny · Feb 7, 2011

It bloomed!

168125_179881782047817_100000779892679_338185_896156_n.jpg

mirandashell · Feb 7, 2011

That's brilliant! Well done, orchids are difficult. Are all those buds blooms?

tiny · Feb 7, 2011

mirandashell said:
That's brilliant! Well done, orchids are difficult. Are all those buds blooms?

Yes, and I just want to snoopy dance. Now I can buy another one after I find the perfect jar. I've had my eye on an orchid at the store for a month while waiting for this one to bloom. But I held fast to my promise, no more orchids until this one flowered.

WooooHOOO!

Shakesbear · Feb 7, 2011

Go you! What sort of orchid is it?

tiny · Feb 7, 2011

You know, I don't know what kind it is. It caught my eye because it's so petite.

orchid killer...

tiny

riding the sun

kinshipknight

Tepelus

And so...

tiny

riding the sun

Tepelus

And so...

robeiae

Touch and go

tiny

riding the sun

tiny

riding the sun

mirandashell

tiny

riding the sun

Shakesbear

knows a hawk from a handsaw

tiny

riding the sun