Newbie 2 months and 9 orchids in...

[rosemadder]

I think I caught the bug several years ago, but its incubation period broke out all over this year's Pacific Orchid Expo. I, who have never even kept houseplants before, went into a small frenzy and bought 5 orchids. Shortly after this purchase, I stumbled across info on semi-hydro. As it happens somebody abandoned an enormous bag of Hydroton in my back yard, so... yeah.

Of course as soon as I got these babies home and looked up their care, I discovered that they are NOT beginner's plants. One was a sensible, hardy, forgiving Dendrobium kingianum-- but the others were two Vandas, a dramatic Catasetum hybrid, and a Phal lowii. As usual, I've opted to jump right into the deep end of the deep end, going straight for a bleeding edge-ish growing method with rare and challenging plants. Can't just do things the safe or easy way, oh no. Then comes the ohnoWTFamIthinkingIspentallthismoneyimmajustgonnak illem!! panic. Go me!

The Dendrobium kingianum is in hydroton in a clay pot outside, blooming comfortably (or trying to, better now that I put some copper tape on the pot to keep away the snails). That's the easy one.

The Vanda Tokyo Blue 'Sapphire' was bare in a basket-- and the expo had battered the poor thing such that all of its roots were dessicated and mangled. I cut away the basket and trimmed off the worst damage-- which did not leave much in the way of roots at all!-- and carefully wired the orchid to a small bamboo trellis, wrapping the roots thoroughly in sphag moss and live spanish moss. I've been spraying it down at least once a day. I unwrapped it today, to rearrange the moss a bit... and discovered at least a dozen brand new growing root nubs, sprouting from the main stem and from the old roots, everywhere! After reading about how fussy vandas are I really thought I was going to kill this one, but it's actually growing! I got a sad Vanda and two months later it's not just alive, it's GROWING! Holy crap! *happy Kermit dance*

Now, I am going to try this one in S/H... of a sort. No leca, no pot-- just braids of sphag moss, wrapped around the roots and then dangling down into a saucer of clean water 6" below. I was looking up "self-watering" pots and seeing setups that use a string wick to pull water upward to the plant, so... hey! The Vanda's roots want to be free, so why not wick the water up to them?? We'll see if the sphag actually pulls enough water to work, and hope it won't be tooo damp. I might try a different material-- maybe something inert that will last longer, like... I dunno... shoelaces?

The other vanda, Renanthera 'Kalsom', came potted in very coarse orchid bark. I watered it just a bit once a week for about a month-- then, when I finally got the guts to repot it, I found nearly all of its lower roots in various shades of mushy, unhappy brown. I debated hanging this one up as I did the other vanda, but in the end I stuck it in the hydroton and went S/H with it. Through the sides of the net pot I can see brown roots, but also green roots-- and the aboveground roots that had been trimmed back to stubs by the seller have all sprouted new growing tips! (I didn't know they could do that!) The leaves are still a happy green, and I think it's about 1" taller overall than when I bought it. We shall see.

The Catasetum... ah, yes, the Catasetum. This is the incredible Fdk 'After Dark', nearly black with spots and an amazing clove fragrance. I wanted the 'Black Pearl', truly black with an even stronger fragrance, but... it was $100 and I'm not only poor, I've never kept orchids before! I'm crazy but I'm not quite THAT crazy. So I got this one instead. (side note-- Sunset Valley Orchids had an amazing batch of orchids at the expo. For me, it was more exciting than the whole rest of the place put together, with a huge range of scents. The breeding they've been doing is impressive work!)

After Dark was dormant, with several huge pseudobulbs and nothing else. I left it sit, watering it lightly just once a month. One growing point appeared near the bottom, followed by the tips of brand new roots. When the new leaves hit 4" or so, I pulled the thing out of the pot-- to discover that it was a single solid mass of roots, with just a tiny bit of moss wedged here and there. I have read some recommendations to take off all the old roots, but I don't know how to tell which ones are still alive and which aren't... so I just stuck the whole mass in a bit of hydroton in a net pot, and started watering it this week. The new leaves are over 6" and counting, the growth noticeable daily! I know it's mainly powered by its energy reserves from the pseudobulbs right now, and it will probably take at least a full season to really see the effects of my care, but it's still satisfying to watch these leaves go gangbusters.

I also picked up a couple of cheapo Trader Joe's NOID phals-- you know, the kind I probably should have started with-- and stuck them in S/H as well. I'll experiment with these later on. I'm very interested to see the effects of using water from my planted aquarium...

And then I met the tiny Neostylis Lou Sneary 'Bluebird' at Paxton Gate, and the fragrance knocked me flat. So that's one more vandaceous addition to the collection. It was in a clay pot, and firmly attached, but I dumped out all the bark (it fell out, the roots stayed) and set the pot in a saucer of water. After a week of coaxing, the roots let go of the wet terracotta, and I transferred it into a small S/H pot with hydroton. A couple roots at the bottom don't look so happy, but many others are crawling everywhere with 1/2" growing tips. The flowers, of course, have all finally dropped off. We'll see if I can bring out any more.

Paxton Gate also had a gorgeous Masdevallia ignea 'Crestwood', whose colors are so lovely I can overlook the lack of fragrance, and I've been biting my nails resisting the urge to spend yet more money on that one... I think I'm losing... argh, that's just what I'd need, another plant that wants totally different conditions to grow in...

I have the orchids in a tray, in a northwest-facing window (that's all I've got) in my living room. On the next shelf above, I have two 56-watt compact flourescent lights on a timer set to come on at 10am and turn off at 4pm just before real sunlight comes in through the window (for about 2-3hrs only). The Phals are all lined up behind the others, farther from the window. Under the tray is a heat mat, and under that is a layer of foil-lined styrofoam insulation that I got with some shipments of live fish. Each orchid (except the Tokyo Blue) is in a 5" net pot with its own inch-high saucer for a reservoir, and I water each until it overflows into the tray. The standing water in the tray is about 80 degrees, but the hydroton above is more like 70. The evaporative cooling effect is very strong. The humidity in here was about 65% back in February, but now the weather is heating up, it's dropped to 45-50%. I may need to take steps to increase the humidity through the summer-- despite being right down on the bay, we get NO rain May-November, so it may get quite dry in here. I'm getting a lot of other plants, ferns and ivy and such, and that should help a little-- I want to find an Areca palm, those are apparently quite good at transpiring water. Also I want an ultrasonic mister, partly because they're just plain nifty-looking. I've also picked up a few sundews, in hopes they'll catch whatever fungus gnats might have hitched a ride in.

I water with tap water run through my faucet filter, plus just a touch of fertilizer and occasionally a tiny dab of kelp stuff and this 'Sea Green' stuff a local hydro supply store gave me. My San Francisco water is pretty soft-- dKh and dGh around 4-- and very close to pH 7. I'm thinking of trying to lower the ph a bit so it can flush more effectively. I'm already seeing tiny bits of white on the hydroton here and there. It's probably just calcium, but it concerns me a little. I'd like to use media that wicks better and thus stays more moist, as I've heard primeagra does (or did?), but it's very difficult to find specific info on types of leca. I may also go with less airy pots to cut down a little on the evaporation.

My main issue right now is trying to find decent S/H pots. The net pots are just too damn squat-- it's very difficult to keep a decent reservoir without immersing any roots, even with small plants! Also I'm not looking forward to fighting roots that try to escape. I think I'll post a separate thread when it comes to the pots issue, because the hunt for something better has been driving me absolutely batty.

Anyway, this post is gigantic already. Maybe I should start an individual thread for each type of my plants??

Mainly I'm just ecstatic that I've kept them all mostly alive for 2 solid months!