Hello from LexaCat

[LexaCat]

I’ve been reading Orchid Board regularly for about a month now and I am particularly excited by the idea of growing project plants with a group. Since I plan to post to the Tolumnia project thread soon, I thought I should quickly introduce myself first.

The first week of COVID lockdown I bought a white Phalaenopsis at Whole Foods - If I was going to be stuck in my house, I needed to brighten things up a bit. When that orchid stopped blooming, I stuck it on a quiet windowsill and bought another (and another, and another, and another….). I didn’t expect anything of the windowsill Phals - I had twice tried to grow Paphs many years ago when I lived in San Francisco, only to watch them die slow horrible deaths. Much to my surprise, when fall arrived, the windowsill Phals all sent up new spikes, every one of them. This sent me running to the internet to figure out what I had done right.

It wasn’t long before I discovered that Orchids by Hausermann is an easy drive from my house. On our first trip, my husband and I spent hours wandering through their greenhouses. Three years later, I now have ~50 plants representing 20+ genera/intergenerics, all grown on windowsills or under LED lights. I’m even having good success growing Paphs now 😊

I am a scientist by profession, but one who has graduated to mentoring experimentalists rather than doing experiments myself. I find that raising orchids feeds my own need for experimentation in a really fun way and I am completely and totally hooked!