Beginner Grower - Things Learned

[Kruger]

I've been into orchids seriously for 2 years. I have made a lot of mistakes and corrections since I started; I thought maybe I would share them if they might help you along. I hope the moderators and experts chime to correct me or if they have additional advice. I still think I have many many years to go before I get good at this, but maybe my initial mindset is relatable to some out there and I hope you don't make the same mistakes I did. Also, I'm not an old man that is going to eschew modern technology, be drunk on wistfulness, or yell at clouds.

Things I learned:

1) You will kill a lot of plants in the process most likely due to your improper care, but you will get better. Don't sweat it. When you throw a plant in the trash, ask yourself what caused this plants death so you learn.

2) Don't try to overcome improper environments with an excess of something else. If a plant needs high humidity that you cannot achieve, over watering will not help and will likely just rot the plant. You need to have a good balance of everything.

3) Strive to have plants that thrive. Don't worry about the flowers (those will come later). Don't accept a plant that just gets by and didn't die. You should seek to provide an environment that your orchids explode in. Orchids are very robust plants and can reward you if you give them what they want.



At the risk of exposing you to an untidy room and my early photos that are embarrassing with my mistakes, here are the major steps I felt made me a better grower.


1) My first orchids, you gotta start somewhere. I still have one of the these today. This is a north window with insufficient light. It took me a few months to accept the plants weren't getting the amount of light they needed.

[Kruger]

2) The next step is I added lights. Lots of lights. Very little with regards to other environmental controls. Note, I was still keeping the pots in saucers at this time. Also look at how over-potted my phals were.

3) I found I had water pooling in the bottom of my saucers. This prevented air from flowing through the pots, so I placed the plants on a grated platform that allowed drainage. Some mods have recommended egg crate readily available from Home Depot that achieves the same thing, wish I had read that sooner. Anyways this was a huge step in allowing the pots to breath.

[Kruger]

4) My latest upgrade has brought better humidity control. I had a smaller evaporative humidifier that put out about 50-60% humidity when the element was fresh. I found myself trying to compensate by over watering which lead to root rot. I since purchased a large evaporative cooler. I can now achieve 90% humidity if I wish, but I will be happy with 70%.

I think this is really going to cut down on the urge to overwater and reduce water loss through the leaves. I found even my small humidifier made a big improvement on leaf firmness and plant health, hopefully this adds more.

5) Read as much as you can. Books, this forum, online. Try to learn as much as you can about your plants and their lineage. I have started buying as many books as I have plants. I enjoy reading about them as much as the next new and exciting plant.




My final thoughts are always strive to get better. Don't make excuses for your growing environment and care routine. Think about the greenhouses that you go to where the plants are doing well. You have to mimic that environment wherever you grow. When you do, your plants will do very well and you will be rewarded. I hope this didn't come across as preachy. I hope you can learn from my mistakes as I progressed and can have beautiful and happy orchids. They are an amazing plant.

[Keysguy]

Very nice post and A1 advice.

[SouthPark]

Definitely! Everyone has to start somewhere! Some people (new growers) get blind-sided by a gift from somebody ..... an orchid gift. Pure blind-side.

But if there's no blind-side, I always reckon that a nice start (for the plant that is) ----- is the grower reads up a lot, goes online a lot, learn a lot, before they acquire an orchid. That also involves getting some accessories, some treatments - fertiliser, fungicide, pesticides, media, etc. So as much know-how as possible can cut down on innocent orchid fatalities.

[KingKong]

The things I have learnt is that Orchids need heat.

Heat is expensive. Most people on here use fans to blow heat away lol.

But seriously I had my first ventilation related problem recently.

So what you need to understand is why to ventilate. Most just do it without considering not doing it for fear of mould and rot but in the wrong climate this can be detrimental.

I have realized that in America I am pretty sure you need a fan to grow orchids as they have a warmer climate.
In Europe a fan just blows all your heat away (it gets very cold here in Winter!)

So reasons to use a fan are
1. Evenly distribute heat around plants
2. Remove excess humidity
3. Provide fresh air for photosynthesis (very little needed but still some needed)
4.Prevent water evaporation droplets remaining on plants too long
5. In certain climates it helps dry out pots

Most people like to overwater and compensate by using a fan which dries the pots out faster. This confused me to start with.

Why not just use the right media that doesn't cause root rot that then needs a fan to keep the media in check?

Lots of things work I have discovered and so although Orchids don't like ventilation (they really don't) at times which I have listed above they need it.

Most importantly it keeps mould and rot away so lots of people use ventilation for that reason.

However I knew I had grown orchids successfully with 0 Ventilation, got them to flower too so clearly I was doing something that made that work and sometimes it would not work. And well there is a very simple answer I have discovered.

Heat.

Thats right if you don't heat your orchid, you need to use a gentle circulating fan but if you heat your orchid every day and let it cool down at night you don't seem to need a fan at all. In fact heating an area makes all the humidity go away and you actually want to trap that humidity - as long as your growing area is heated and cooled regularly there is no need for a fan but it can still be beneficial to distribute heat as I mentioned before.

I know ventilation has caused a few debates on here in the past so that's what I have learnt.

There is also a difference between oscillating fans and extraction fans - these things are never elaborated or considered on here much. Anyway, still learning every day.

I find the biggest challenge is heating like I mentioned. I have spent most my time trying to find the cheapest most efficient ways to heat my orchids, which I have not seen much emphasis on whatsoever but to me it is quite important.

I know the heating requirements for a tropical orchid can be as little as 3 euro per year but it can be as high as 20 euro per year.

Now lets put that into perspective, if you have one orchid and use a 20 watt heat mat to heat it then that is fine. But if you lets say have a collection of 100 orchids and do the same, you'd suddendly find you'd have a bill for 2000 euros by the end of the year.

Like said I have found the minimum it takes is 3 euros per year and that is the most efficient I have found for orchids that need 26-28 degrees C during the day in a cold European climate(works out at 1 cent per day).

If you have 100 orchids it will cost 300 euros per year minimum and like said that is doing it efficiently by not blowing away any heat, using insulation wherever possible and builling bigger greenhouses/growboxes.

A fellow grower here used to use spend 3000 euro per year using a space heater heating his shed. Eventually he decided to sell his entire collection (understandably with those costs associated to it) so don't end up ignoring heat and heating costs till they build up out of control. It could mean giving up completely. It's not a cheap and easy hobby and nobody has all the answers no matter what they tell you.

[Dorchid]

[SouthPark]

Originally Posted by KingKong

Lots of things work I have discovered and so although orchids don't like ventilation (they really don't) at times which I have listed above they need it.

KK ----- just like in our own bodies, there are processes - chemical, mechanical etc going on in and with them. We can call this say biological process - but we know it's an mix of things/activity.

Orchid growers then have choices to make --- all going towards providing a suitable/workable conditions for the orchid to grow in ----- hopefully grow 'properly' in.

Unlike humans in general (where humans can probably truly like something or not like something) ----- orchids don't have brains and don't have human feelings --- so orchids can't like or dislike something. So maybe an orchid can't like or dislike ventilation, and can't like or dislike too much water. Any negative effects are just the result of a not meeting some particular requirement for the growing process/system.

If an orchid's health goes down-hill, then the observable effects of it only reflects what is physically happening due to something undesirable occurring ---- eg. growth requirements not in suitable range, pathogen effect, growth system not in a desirable state etc.

The growers of orchids for home-growing must try to keep things under control - for the benefit of the orchid.

And in order to keep things under control - without things getting out of control ----- there are at least some very useful and good rules of thumb out there - for growing orchids. We know the general rules for orchids and plants ------ provide suitable temperature (and temperature range), suitable humidity, suitable lighting levels and duration, adequate amount of water, avoid roots from running low or running out of oxygen, adequate nutrients and elements, cut down or eliminate chances of pathogens and attack from unwanted organisms/animals, etc.

People have their various different ways (with their growing conditions - media used, watering method, frequency etc) of working toward keeping things under control. There are various styles.

The nice thing about the internet and information sharing is that we all learn and accumulate more and more knowledge through time, and experience, and learning.

So the methods we use, and the choices we make can all go toward growing orchids and keeping them healthy for long durations of time. Not just healthy for a few years ...... but for decades and more.

We know that when orchids are grown at home and in different regions ------ the methods used are various due to choices - both educated and sometimes uneducated, and choices of just preference ----- about just making a choice of a certain style of growing - regardless.

Various different approaches may have things going for them, or sometimes against --- involving time, effort, resources, cost, etc.

In the end, I just think that - as long as everybody does their best to work toward understanding what is generally needed for keeping orchids alive and healthy for the long haul (and learning as much as possible sooner, such as before acquiring orchids, rather than later), then that will be fantastic.

But obviously, there are times when some new growers do receive orchids or something (or simply buys one on impulse or desire) before they're actually 'ready' (ie. blank slate - no accessories, no toolkits, and/or details of requirements) to grow ----- as in an unforeseen start. In that case, not much can be done except to just get on the road to growing heheh.

Everyone definitely starts from somewhere.

A great thing about this orchidboard forum is we can share information and experience, and ask questions - all working toward maintaining and good growing of healthy orchids.