Green fingered

[nineveh_uk]

This year, for the first time ever, I have got a potted orchid to flower again. I used to simply neglect them by failing to water them and then they died. Then I moved on to trying to look after them but getting it wrong, so that my mother had to rescue them and restore them to health and return them to me when they were going to flower. But this time I have not only kept an orchid alive, I have kept it flourishing. It currently has a flower spike with ten flowers on it, several buds, and another little spike coming through. I shall wait until a second success before I claim to have cracked orchid-keeping, but it is a pleasant small victory, nonetheless.

Photos on LJ...

Comments

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

Congratulations!

[pellegrina.livejournal.com]

Impressed. How did you accomplish this? I just killed my very first orchid by method one (taking about 3 years over it).

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I think my epiphany was when I asked my mother how she did it, and she said ' Oh, I just water them a bit when they need it', which is fine when you have a qualification in horticulture, a professional career, and a hobby backing you up, and I decided that I needed a completely different approach. So I now have an orchid regime. The orchid lives somewhere obvious, where I won't forget it - it spent the period when it wasn't flowering in the kitchen by the draining board. It gets watered every weekend, by being put under the tap and the tap turned on so that the pot and roots are soaked, and then held for a minute or so, so the water drains out. The pot is clear, so that I can see what is going on. I bought some feed, and I feed it according to the schedule on the bottle (sometimes I feed it so it gets a bit less, but never more). My main problem before was feeling I never got the water right - I neglected it, or did it too often so it rotted because I was trying not to neglect it. A good drenching once a week, with a bit more water if necessary in summer, seems to work.

[pellegrina.livejournal.com]

That's really helpful, thanks; I tried to water it every week or so, but regularly forgot, and when I did water it, I watered it until the water ran off the top and got everywhere, which was clearly not nearly enough water. No wonder the poor thing died after a couple of years. In my defence, I rescued it en route to the bin when it stopped flowering in the staff room at work.