Newbie needs help - Orchid Board

mjgord51 · #1 02-24-2022, 03:13 PM

We live in So Cal's lower desert. My wife and I have been growing Moth Orchids for five years now and just in the last 3 months have noticed were going to have a baby growing on one of the "stems" LOL. We don't have any books on the care of Orchids and would like someone to give us some suggestions on a all around good book for starters.
thanks, Marvin

rbarata · #2 02-24-2022, 03:23 PM

Welcome Marvin

That's what we call a "keiki". You should leave it attached to the stem, unless if it gets dry. Otherwise, leave it there and you'll see that it will grow roots. When these roots are approx. 5 cm (2 in) you can take it out and pot it.

mjgord51 · #3 02-24-2022, 04:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rbarata

Welcome Marvin

That's what we call a "keiki". You should leave it attached to the stem, unless if it gets dry. Otherwise, leave it there and you'll see that it will grow roots. When these roots are approx. 5 cm (2 in) you can take it out and pot it.

Thanks for the welcome. Now our/my knowledge or Termanology on the plants parts isn't that good. I did watch a Youtube video last night searching for information about re-potting and the word "keiki" did show up showing the new sprout with maybe 1/2 inch of the stem on each side of the bottom and yes mine does have roots 5 & 6 inches long. In that video it showed only burying one of the three roots on her keiki, is that right or just how she does the re-potting of her plants or Orchids?

PS; this forum has a restriction on the "size" of downloaded pictures so until I can figure that out I can't post any pictures for show n tell.

estación seca · #4 02-24-2022, 09:00 PM

Welcome to the Orchid Board!

I think the best book in English for beginners and intermediates is The American Orchid Society Guide to Orchids and their Culture, by Mary Gerritsen and Ron Parsons.

The American Orchid Society also has a lot of information on their Web site, AOS.org.

There are a lot of good YouTube videos and a lot of ones that aren't so good. Be careful of things you hear there.

When removing a keiki I put as much of the roots into the medium as I can.

wcrosman · #5 02-24-2022, 09:54 PM

Watch Miss Orchid Girl on youtube

estación seca · #6 02-24-2022, 11:00 PM

Don't watch Miss Orchid Girl. Her growing conditions in Europe are not at all like your growing conditions in the desert.

mjgord51 · #7 02-25-2022, 02:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by estación seca

Welcome to the Orchid Board!

I think the best book in English for beginners and intermediates is The American Orchid Society Guide to Orchids and their Culture, by Mary Gerritsen and Ron Parsons.

The American Orchid Society also has a lot of information on their Web site, AOS.org.

There are a lot of good YouTube videos and a lot of ones that aren't so good. Be careful of things you hear there.

When removing a keiki I put as much of the roots into the medium as I can.

Thanks for the info. Looked on Ebay "O" found as well I looked on Amazon but that book isn't in there Library either many others though, but I did find it Googling the books name & authors on "Orchidweb" for $24.95. Being on a fixed retired income $ u c k $ would like to find it at a lesser expense anyone know where that is?

Roberta · #8 02-25-2022, 02:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mjgord51

Thanks for the info. I looked on Amazon but that book isn't in there Library many others though, but I did find it Googling the books name & authors on "Orchidweb" for $24.95. Being on a fixed retired income $ u c k $ would like to find it at a lesser expense anyone know where that is?

Go to AOS.org, the Shop. Book is about $30 and well worth it.

estación seca · #9 02-25-2022, 03:02 PM

If there's a orchid society near you they may have some. It was released not long ago. The AOS sold them in bulk to orchid societies to resell at shows and to members.

Dimples · #10 02-25-2022, 04:51 PM

Books are great resources, but they do cost money and the information in them can fall out of date over time (not that the book recommended to you is bad or out of date, I have not read that one, just a general con of printed media). The internet has near-infinite amounts of free information.

If you copy and paste, or retype, the following into a web-browser search bar it will bring up all of the relevant results from Orchid Board.

put-your-search-term-here site:orchidboard.com

So for example, if you want to search for information on phalaenopsis you'd type phalaenopsis site:orchidboard.com into the search engine (google, bing, yahoo, etc.).

You can change the orchidboard.com part to the web address of any website you want to see results from.