In Situ Vs Home/Greenhouses. What makes orchids strong?
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Old 11-01-2023, 08:19 AM
Keysguy Keysguy is online now
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In Situ Vs Home/Greenhouses. What makes orchids strong? Male
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Hola Cach26!

You are raising some really intriguing questions and points.

Here are some of my thoughts based on my 20+ years of orchid growing. Keep in mind this makes me a neophyte next to a lot of the contributors to this board.

I started growing in a small greenhouse in the northeast US where the winters are long, cold and dark but moved my collection to Key West, FL about 8 years ago.

*- the greenhouse was a constant battle of all things environment to find a "sweet spot" where the plants would survive. I didn't say thrive, I said survive. Unless you were growing plants native to that area, you were constantly adjusting the environment to find something "good enough" but never really what any of them preferred. This has to put a tremendous amount of stress on the plants which would make them more susceptible to any number of negative things.

* my main lesson there was you need to settle on 1 or 2 environments that you can consistently create and collect plants only suitable to those environments. And then it's still going to be a constant battle.

*When I moved my plants to Key West (an environment likely more similar to yours) probably 25% of them died. Why? Because I now grow in a shade house so I can't control the environment beyond the shading impact of the shade cloth covering. I do have supplemental water and fertilizer but if it rains, they get watered. If it doesn't, they don't get as much. And they flourish! Why? Because I'm now growing only plants that want to be in that environment. They developed where they naturally occur over tens of thousands of years. They "hardened" themselves to exist there. As mother nature threw them curveballs, they were mostly gradual, the plants adaptation process continued and the species continued right along with the changes. In cases of violent change (think a major hurricane) they get beat to crap but eventually they come back and maybe even better and stronger. Just like your sobralia getting mowed down example. An occasional good haircut makes them stronger.

For me, it's all about matching the plant to the environment. As soon as you tinker with the environmental factors (and that's a really long list) some plant somewhere in the collection is not going to be happy. Light (intensity & duration), air movement, water, nutrients, temperature and seasonal adjustments (if not purely tropical) are individually, if not collectively, critical to each individual plant.

As soon as humans start messing with things (in our current discussion orchids), things tend to quickly get out of balance.

I suspect "the secret" you are looking for is to leave them where they naturally occur and enjoy them there. But that's not nearly as much fun, is it?
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