Thanks! Fortunately the fires (at least the big ones) aren't anywhere near me - mostly in northern California, and with prevailing winds blowing west to east I'm also mostly spared from the smoke, being far south of them. Living in a forest in the mountains may be lovely and peaceful (before it burns) but I am glad to be a suburban-dwelling flatlander.
---------- Post added at 06:38 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:37 PM ----------
Oh, and also don't worry much about fertilizer. While one can really get down in the weeds in discussions of fertilizer (Orchid Board has LOTS of discussion on the subject), orchids require very little. Of all of the factors in orchid culture, fertilizer is at the bottom of the list behind watering, potting, light, temperature, air movement. So for just one orchid, if you have any fertilizer (like for houseplants) you can use it, at about half the strength that you'd use for anything else. Ideally, all three numbers the same (like 20-20-20 or 7-7-7) but the most important is the first number (nitrogen). If there is more of something, you'd want nitrogen to be the high number. Once weekly, weakly is the "formula", but under-fertilizing is much better than over-fertilizing.
THink of how a Phalaenopsis (and most of the other orchids that you're likely to grow) grows in nature - on tree branches or tree trunks. Any nutrients come from detritus washing down from above when it rains. (hint: not much). That also explains the importance of air - the trunk or branch of a tree is really well drained, lots of breeze. It gets rained on, then the sun comes out and dries it though in nature in places like the Philippines (home of many Phalaenopsis) there is lots of humidity... we make up for the lack of it with pots.
Last edited by Roberta; 08-07-2021 at 10:44 PM..
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