Orchids

[MBOU]

Hey
 
Orchids seem fairly common place in a lot of households... but was wondering if anyone was really into Orchids? I've always liked them... only ever had one and was pretty much neglected to do what it wanted and apparently it liked that! Flowered nicely every year! No idea what species it was...
 
Now I have been tempted into orchids again (well.. my attempt at growing water lilies from seed was a flop! Only got to straggly seedlings then they all died and the water stank) so I thought orchids would make a new project!
 
Im not having much luck with plants!! Aquatic plants fine!! But don't have tanks at the moment... my spider plant looks like it wants to kill itself....
 
But I have gone from 0 to 4 orchids in as many weeks! I love them so much! Started with a sort of claret coloured Spider Orchid (Cambria) with yellow/cream mottling all over petals, has flowered on one stem and now flowering on second stem and I can already see the bulge in the leaf where a new stem will appear!
 
Then I bought myself a big cream/yellow (with white center) Phalaenopsis Orchid as it perfectly matches the creamy yellow I painted my room recently which to me = happy colours
 
And then today which really *really* is bad of me... I had £40 of birthday money from yesterday and whilst I have a million and one things I *need* that money for.... I didn't want the money to mean nothing.... I wanted ti buy something that I could look at and be happy with So.............. of course... I bought two orchids today
 
Downside of working on a gardencenter site! Especially one that has a huge orchid section! And one guy that works there is just awesome! He takes time out of his day every day to come look at fish and will listen to me be all excited by new species.... but discovered he has an absolute wealth of knowledge on orchids!! And gets excited about the rare species they have lol (had Blue Vandas there, the only blue orchids!... though even he admitted were unlikely to survive long term in the uk as required intense lighting that wouldn't be natural in this country...)...
 
But he gave me time to tell me how to care for each species and what to look for, how to water, what foods and when and how to propagate each species. I was seriously impressed with how easy he made it sound when I know it wont be LOL...
 
But today I got myself another (slightly smaller but still double stemmed) Phalaenopsis that is incredible! It has beautiful purple centre and a thick white edge to each petal. It is a very striking effect and not one I have ever seen!!
 
The second I got today was a Dendrobium (Singapore) Orchid, with delicate little flowers, very pretty and the leaves are a totally differen shape, as id stacked one above each other rather than seemingly random. Each flower being a dark pink/purple in the middle and 2/3 of each petal is white but the pink from the middle spreads up each edge of each petal and has pink veins through the white. Im not a big fan of 'pretty and pink' in the slightest but loved this orchid for being different!
 
I love that each orchid I have (well, nearly each having 4 orchids but 3 species) requires different care! I have soooooooooo much to research! I don't intend to buy any more (my mum as a gardener would freak out if i filled house with orchids, she hates them!! lol) however I do intend to learn to care more specifically for each species, if I cant do it for fish... orchids it is! And would like to propagate a few 'babies' from my own plants... and grow them on... and when I know more and feel more confident (thought was mightily tempted to do it a few days ago but would end in tears atm), I would like to order a variety of interesting named species as young plants online and grow on a big batch of young and interesting species to sell on.
 
That's the plan anyway.. maybe I will just end up keeping the ones I have an enjoy them! We shall see how it goes!
 
How about you?

 

[Baccus]

I keep quite a few orchids, mostly demdrobiums and Chinese Ground Orchids oh and of course catalyas. The entire length of the western side of my house has been turned into one big shade house for my orchids and other tropical shades plants like globba, cucurma and ferns.
I must say I have been very slack on my orchid care of late, I am slowly getting all of my orchids out of hanging pots and into hanging logs, I dont tend to fertilize them a lot but I do give them slow release fertiliser tabs which seems to agree with them. And when I clean my goldfish pond I put the gunk/ sludge from the bottom of the pond on my orchids too.
 
I know many orchid growers advise to use seaweed fertilizers, but be very careful with these and fish emulsion ferts (if not made from fresh water fish- in Australia we have stuff called Charlie Carp that is made from pest carp), because  seaweed and fish emulison ferts can have a lot of salts in them, and these salts build up in the charcoal and other potting subatances used in the pots.
 
Woild love to say more but running out of time and have to head off to work.

 

[LIL860]

Another orchid lover here. I have 21 spread over different varietys would have more but no room!

 

[snowflake311]

This is an old topic. But I love Orchids and just completed my small collection with a Sherry Baby oncidium. I got it at Trader Joes and it is Huge well worth the money I need to repot it as soon as the blooms fall because this plant looks VERY Cramped. I might divide it too. 
 
My orchid collection  
3 mini and 1 Med size Phalaenopsis 
1 Brassidium Lillian aka Spider Orchid 
1 Miltonia of some kind bought it after it had bloomed. 
1 [SIZE=12.727272033691406px]Sherry[/SIZE] Baby Oncidium 
 
I love orchids they are the only Non aquatic plant I keep. After killing one Phal Than almost killing my other 2. I finally figured it out and now my Orchids are Thriving. The ones I keep do surprisingly well in the Dry cold climate of a Lake Tahoe Home.  I think the fact that I have an 80gal and 100Gal tank in my house helps with keeping the humidity up in my home.