Hi! Hope you're having a good day!

[itzi]

I've been on here for a few months now, mostly reading and learning but also talking to many of you. This forum is lovely, and its amazing to me that so many growers with decades of experience just chat and volunteer knowledge worth its weight in gold! I know I have a long road ahead of me, but I'm happy I've found such a beautiful hobby.

About myself, I'm a 22 year old college student from South Texas. I have ADHD, and I've had more short-lived hobbies than I can count. I'm hoping that making friends and actively interacting with other growers will help me commit to this for the long term. At the moment I'm still "between majors", as I was just diagnosed last year after a long hiatus from college and it has been a rocky road adjusting again. My main interest has been Computer Science, but honestly this hobby is reviving my interest in biology so I may reconsider that...

As for my plants, I've got a nice little collection! Mostly plants I've gotten online, but also a few from the San Antonio Orchid Weekend, which I attended at the end of January. Here's a list!

1. Catsetum expansum Rojo
2. Monnierara Millenium Magic 'Witchcraft'
3. Prosthechea fragrans (?)
4. Vanda Boonyarit Spots
5. 3 x Phalaenopsis hygrochila
6. Ascocenda ampullaceum
7. Cattleya schilleriana
8. Cattleya leuddemaniana
9. Cattleya intermedia
10. Blc. NEW HYBRID (Blc. Love Sound 'Dogashima' AM/AOS x Blc. Schroder's Love 'SVO' AM/AOS)

I've got new growths on two of the hygrochila, ampullaceum, intermedia, prosthechea, vanda, and both catasetinae!

Lastly, I'll ask a question and give my answer. What sparked your love for growing orchids? I had a mini phalaenopsis NoID that after not blooming or growing for years, started to die. I was obsessive in trying to revive it, but it didnt make it. I learned how beautifully different and complex orchids were, and that spurred me to try growing more. Now I'm here!

Thanks for reading my wall of text, I hope you have a nice day <3

[estación seca]

Welcome to the Orchid Board!

What sparked your love for growing orchids?

I have liked growing plants and gardening since I was tiny. I've always wanted to grow everything.

[Diane56Victor]

Welcome.

Always wanted to grow orchids but we lived in an area that got weeks of hot dry weather and our finances didn't allow for a shadehouse purchase (young family, one wage, high interest rates)
Now the kids have flown, we have moved to a more temperate area and I can indulge myself, and I do indulge...often!

[rbarata]

I have always liked orchids (and plants in general, but especially orchids) since I was a pre-teen. Can't tell you why...I just like them.

[Shadeflower]

hey itzti, love to hear others stories. Certainly better than mine. I started after I had a close brush with death, realized if I were to go I would have wasted my talent growing plants. So I moved on to orchids, supposedly the hardest houseplant to grow.
There were certainly some challenges along the way and still persist to this day. Like tonight I am fussing over one of my very first orchids a sharry baby. I've snipped away some infected parts, hoping for the best but haven't quite reached the point of not losing orchids anymore yet.
Getting there. But also once the weak ones have died there should only be strong healthy ones left right lol?

I told myself I would try to grow fragrant orchids I had never smelt before - that has been one of my biggest aims.

Unfortunately as I keep complaining about the more I grow and get better the more I discover that orchids are not that difficult at all but finding the right information can be. There will be 1000 different opinions online on how to grow them, 900 will be able to grow them but only 10 will be able to grow them to flower regularly year after year. So who do you listen to? Discovering who to listen to has been the biggest challenge and to me any orchid that doesn't grow well is time lost.

Another highly frustrating thing on my quest is discovering which orchids truly are fragrant. I know people keep mentioning different dendrobiums as being fragrant and maybe I haven't grown the right ones but I've even managed to get my anosmum to flower and it smells soapy but it's nothing compared to a really fragrant cattleya. I have high hopes for my dendrobium falcorostrum at least but it is so small I am worried it might end up like my moniliforme, supposedly fragrant yet it really isn't. I'm sure many have heard the haraella retrocalla (or odorate) is fragrant and yes it is but you have to remember it is the size of a bottle cap. Again nothing compared to a fragrant cattleya which can fill an entire room with amazing fragrances.

I think there is a bit of a conspiracy going on to get more people to grow dendrobiums - and they are nice and they are fragrant - but to those who are looking for really powerful fragrances I have yet to find a dendrobium that has matched my expectations. I really thgouht the anosmum would be a strong fragrant one. Maybe I need more flowers on it.

So yeah my aims have been very different. It's probably why I am less patient than I should be too. I've only managed to get 35% of my collection to flower so far and I like to believe I know what I'm doing but honestly I was copying others too much at one point I felt and my orchids started to suffer.

I hate seeing my orchids suffer. Looking after them the way others grow their orchids is also an issue I had. Like I wanted to get LOTS to flower for me. The way others were doing it would involve watering my collection for 20 hours per week.

I don't have 20 hours spare per week. When I got a thrips outbreak, I was spending 3 hours per day treating my orchids for 4 months straight, every single night I was treating orchid after orchid. Now I am down to treating 3 per week as I spot residual outbreaks reoccurring but that was so work intensive for a very long time. If I was spending 20 hours per week watering on top of that I would have given up the hobby by now.

I have the most respect for growers that have been caring for plants - the same plants in their collection for 10 years +. The long term commitment can be the hardest thing.

I know a lot don't like my approach, I see it as a bit of a competition I suppose but I only see it that way because I want to try to improve my results year after year. It's a competition with myself more than anything to get my orchids to do better, Sometimes I feel I take it too serious but I also think others don't at times so comes both ways. You could argue I annoy more people always talking about how to care for them best but that is what I find interesting, just like a mechanic would talk about engine performance all day long whereas the race driver will only be interested in what wins him the race.

I like to think of myself as an orchid mechanic. Always trying to fine tune their performance.

[nemesis]

Welcome to the OB! It is nice to have you here. I am a new grower with a very small collection and am in love with Angraecoids. I did a lot of research before I bought any. And waited many years...now we'll see if I can grow them. At this point, I'm not even hoping for blooms. I just want them to LIVE!!!! I got into orchids because I was in a nursery (in San Antonio) one day and accidentally bumped my head on a huge beautiful white flower, hanging from a ginormous plant suspended from the ceiling. I decided someday, I was going to grow one of those things.

Congratulations on the new acquisitions. They are beautiful plants. Can't wait to see the blooms.

K