I was actually at a point where I'd given up on orchids back then. I had killed a couple of phals and wildcats, and I was stressed out over the one cymbidium that I had been given as a house-warming present some years earlier that was barely alive, but had not flowered for years. I figured orchids was just not my thing.
But the lady running the local nursery just has a way of getting my money. "This one is super-easy! It's a poor man's orchid, and it can survive anything!", she claimed. "You can keep it outside in the garden year round and even plant it in potting soil. You can't go wrong with this one". So I bought some kind of green vine kind of thing that I later asked the people on the OrchidBoard to identify for me, and you told me it was a reed-stem epidendrum.
Apart from that old cymbidium that has recoved quite a bit now that the owner start to get the hang of growing orchids, this is by far my oldest orchid. I think I've had it for 5 years or so. Still have not seen the flowers.
In the years that has passed since the nursery lady tricked me into buying it, I've several times asked her how her epidendrums are doing, and the answer is always the same (up to last time when she, rather sad, reported that the goats had eaten some of them):" It grows like a weed!" And I have to agree. It's a vigorous thing. "But does it flower?", I ask. "Nope, never seen a flower on any of them yet". Rrrrrrrriiiiiight. And some 'hmph' and teeth grinding.
My plant was hanging in a spot where it got enough direct sunshine to get a faint purple tint on some of the leaves and the stems. Advice from others indicated that that should be enough, so I preached patience until I reached a point where I gave up on the whole plant.
I just grabbed it one morning and hung it on the fence in full sun the whole day. We're talking strong African sun here, no filtering. Some of the older canes cringed and died, but I still showed no mercy and provided no shade.
On sunny days I take the garden hose and spray it a couple of times per day to provide it with a bit of humidity (we sometimes have RH of less than 5%). It gets drenched in fertilizer whenever there are leftovers from the greenhouse.
I had come to terms with that the fact that this was forever just going to be a green plant without flowers.
And a few days ago I saw this:
Is it...? Could it really be? A spike?!
Is it a spike? Is it?!?!
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