The Catharsis of Getting Rid of Orchids

[Zabeta]

For a long time, I couldn't bear to get rid of a living thing that I had committed to taking care of, even if an orchid was just not doing well in my climate and stressed me out every time I looked at it. (The humidity all summer where I live has been in the teens. One time the hygrometer didn't even give me a reading because it was so low.)

But then I decided to just throw one out. I had done everything I could think of, and it was not really growing. It was hanging on, but after over a year it wasn't recovering from its initial repot. So, I impulsively threw it in the trash. And immediately felt better.

Over the next few weeks, I did the same with other orchids that were ailing. I rationalized that my climate is so extreme, humidity-wise, that some orchids just won't do very well. Most of the ones I threw out were oncidiums that simply needed higher humidity than I could provide, even with a humidifier. I went from maybe 48 orchids to 37 or so (but then promptly acquired two more).

Now I'm left with healthy (though not perfect), growing, happy plants, some of which have spikes or blooms that I coaxed out of them. It makes me happy to see them and care for them, and I don't stress about my failures. Most of my plants are cattleyas and dendrobiums, though I do have four healthy phals and several tough oncidiums that don't seem to mind the weather all that much. And a few others.

It's not that I don't want to nurse an orchid back to health, but if I try and try for a long time with no success, I realized that I'm sometimes happier if I just acknowledge the failure and move on.

Am I a bad person? Just kidding. But I am wondering about the rest of you. Do you nurse an orchid indefinitely, or do you prefer to get rid of it if nothing changes?