Eight Ways to Kill
Your Orchid
1. Water it every day.
The Most Frequently Asked Question that we receive at the FOC is, "Do you water the orchids every day?" The answer is,
"No, but we check them every day." Checking means looking at
the potting mix to see if it is dry. A good grower checks the potting mix daily and learns to recognize the change in color that accompanies the drying process. Checking is what separates the green thumbs from the black thumbs.
2. Establish a watering schedule for your
orchid. Make it conform to your schedule. Water it on the same day of the week
that you go to the gym, or the grocery or the car wash.
This one is really tempting. But let's say it's September. Did you notice that yesterday
was one and a half minutes shorter than the day before? Maybe not, but your
plant did. Did you notice that the sun is now lower in the sky than it was in
July? Your plant did. So, two months from now, when your plant
receives one less hour of light and considerably weaker light intensity does it make sense to water with the same frequency?
3. Water your orchid whenever you
water your other plants.
Convenient, yes. Good horticulture, no.
4. Water your Phalaenopsis orchid with
ice cubes.
Tell me you don't do this. In nature a Moth Orchid seldom experiences temperatures below 60º. And you're thinking about applying ice water to its roots? Seriously? Why not just put it in the
freezer for a day? You can revive it later by dropping it into a pot of
boiling water.
5. Find out where your orchid is native to and
water it when the weatherchannel says it's raining there. This strategy wouldn't work even if you
and your houseplant lived in its country of origin. Why not? Microclimate matters
more to an orchid than macroclimate. Even if your condo is located in the rainforest, the kitchen window microclimate where your potted orchid resides is different from the microclimate within the tree canopy
outside.
6. Force it to live its entire life in a
beautiful pot with no drainage holes, in a dense soil mix, and smothered
with florist's moss.
I know you received it from the florist this
way. It looks great, I admit. Shouldn't they know
better? What do you think? I think the florist's priority is how the plant looks, not how well it grows.
7. Force it to live its entire life in the
same soil mix that the grower put it in.
After two years an orchid mix is history. Orchids in conventional (peatmoss-based) houseplant soil should be sold
with CAVEAT EMPTOR (Buyer Beware) stamped on the pot. The structure of peatmoss (and composted pine bark) is too fine and too dense to be a good long
term medium for plants that in nature grow in trees. It retains loads of
water and breaks down quickly. At our Orchid Care Clinic we do more post-mortums on orchids in this mix than any other.
You may have received it from the grower in this mix. Shouldn't they know
better? Look at it from the
grower's perspective. Peat-based mixes are cheap, widely available, uniform,
sterile and lightweight (meaning inexpensive to ship). Young orchids reach
flowering size rapidly in this mix, saving production time
and labor, and then can be swiftly passed along to the consumer. What's not to
like?
8. Bring your orchid to our Orchid Care Clinic (good so far) on the coldest day in January. One the way home leave it in your unheated car while your visit every store in Lenox Mall.
Oh no. More blood on my hands.
Oh no. More blood on my hands.
Do you have a similar list? Don't hide it. It means you've learned something, and that's good. It means you're growing ...even when you're plants aren't.
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