Orchid Hunt - Anniston, Alabama

[jmmehler]

Several years ago, a local orchid grower liquidated his business, and donated what he had left to the Anniston Museum of Natural History. I remember walking through an atrium there, and marveling at some giant Cattleya specimens, with dozens of blooms, overflowing from giant wire baskets. That must have been just after they had been donated.

Botanical gardens and Historical organizations struggle with finances, and tending to orchids doesn’t always fit into their meager budgets. Over the last couple of years, many of those orchids have perished. The rest have struggled to survive in soggy rotted medium, or in the case of the Vandas, not enough water at all.

I got a call last week from an orchid friend in Anniston, informing me that the Museum was disposing of all their remaining orchids, and would I please take all that I could. And so, I embarked on my new adventure.
I drove to Anniston, Al on Saturday afternoon and loaded about 30 orchids into my car. Upon returning to Birmingham, Al, I spent a couple of hours cleaning up and hanging about a dozen Vandas, and wrenching some of the big Cats out of their rotted environments.

Last winter these orchids endured temperatures as low as 35 degrees, and were watered almost daily. Despite the completely rotted and soggy medium, the giant Cats were putting out new pseudo-bulbs all over. Also of note was the fairly new pseudo-bulb that was sprouting two new bulbs of its own.

Most of the Vandas had 3 – 4 foot root systems, and maybe 6 – 8 inches of leaves. I started cutting away the dried up roots until I noticed that they were green inside. Another interesting observation was that along the length of the Vanda roots, there were virtually no constrictions indicating disease or infestation. According to my buddy, Ronnie B. those root constrictions are the bane of Vanda growers. Which brings me to my newest theory on orchid survival; Regardless of how poorly you treat an orchid, through over watering or under watering, or rotted media, if you provide an environment with copious amounts of diffused lighting, and temperatures below 85 degrees, they will thrive.

Sunday I spent 4 ½ hours re-habilitaing and repotting the rescues. I started out by mixing up 2 gallons of Imidacloprid. I submerged the small ones, and held the larger ones over the tank and poured it all over them. I then strained the rest, and fumigated all my other orchids. Each orchid was re-potted according to its needs.

Spent another 2 hours throughout the rest of the day, with tagging, and situating them.

While I still have to log some Odontoglossums, Oncidiums, etc, there are also several noid Cats. One of them, has pseudo-bulbs over 2 feet tall!

So far, I have logged the following;
Ascnd Yip Sum Wah 'Flame' FCC/AOS (2)
Asctm curviflorum '#1 Dream City' (two tiny survirors)
C. Daffodil 'Mage' (glauca x auriantaca)
C. George Hauserman 'York' HCC
D. ansusanum
D. capituliflorum
Dtps. Dyah Redita 'Rose Button' Cce (in bloom)
P. violacea 'Krull-Smith' x '4th of July'
Rhy coelestis ('Fuchs Indigo' AM/AOS x 'Robert' AM/AOS)
V Blue Spur
V coelesii
V Kasems Delight x coerolea
V teres
V Thailand Bea x Ascnda Yip Sun Wah
V tricolor 'India' crown rot
possible (hoping) P. pulcherrima (in bloom)

I still have to repot some of the cats, but I cannot find any shallow pots large enough to accommodate them. I may just buy some new coco mats and put them back in their wire baskets.

Come fall, I’m hoping that my buddy, Ronnie B, will take all the Vandas, and large Cattleyas. Still have to start up with the Odontoglossums, Oncidiums, etc.

I’m tempted to go back for more this weekend, but I may have worn myself out for a couple of weeks.