Hello from Virginia

[Itazura]

Hello, everyone! After a long while of lurking on this forum, I felt it was finally time to join, and after a few days of nervous shyness, I finally mustered the courage to post something of an introduction.

I’m an orchid grower from rural, mountainous southwestern Virginia, where the hobby is a rarity. The majority of plant-growing around here is done in the form of elderly women’s flower and vegetable gardens, a few small farms, and ginseng harvesting ventures in the woods. Even so, I’ve been growing various types of exotic houseplants ever since I was little, but recently I’ve turned some of my attention over to orchids, which I had previously passed off as being finicky and eager to waste away to their deaths. After some research it simply turns out that supermarket orchid care tags are very misleading (“Just add some ice cubes once a week!” “Your orchid will thrive on neglect!”), and there’s other types of orchids out there that are probably considered easier to care for than the standard phalaenopsis.

I currently have three rescued NoID phals, a phalaenopsis “Samera x Shingher’s Pure Love,” a Jiaho’s Pink Girl mini phal, an angraecum leonis that’s stuck in the mail at the moment, and an ailing brassavola nodosa cutting that’ll probably end up being a subject for a different post soon. I look forward to learning from you all.