After all these years, I've finally purchased my first Phalaenopsis. I had been thinking of growing one for a while now.
It's a mini phal, currently being sold at a hardware store (called Bunnings, maybe equivalent of Home Depot).
Despite a lot of orchid abuse or neglect being noticed and seen at this chain of stores, I saw this particular kind of mini phal - and made my choice to buy it.
The tag just says 'Phalaenopsis sp.', which I assume doesn't mean a great deal in terms of its history.
I like this mini phal. There were a whole bunch of clones just like it on the bench. What I like about it is it doesn't have the upside down 'fangs' on the end of the lip. I prefer the 'fangless' look. Most (or maybe all) regular size phals I see have fangs of some sort, small or large ...... or some might see them as a pair of tendrils on the end of the lip.
They sold this mini phal in a square shaped glass jar (no drainage holes in it at all, which seems kind of ridiculous) with bark media. I'm going to be repotting into a small black plastic pot (with decent size drainage holes) using 5 mm (average diameter) scoria.
[
update] - it turned out that this Bunnings mini phal was potted in tightly packed spaghnum, with small sized bark surrounding this spaghnum ball. But the glass jar had no draining holes - so maybe still a bit ridiculous (ie. no drainage holes). I have now potted it in scoria.
Above: photo taken with flash on
My first Phalaenopsis
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