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Tuesday, January 8, 2013

I'm back home, and my orchids are doing great

Colorful terrarium

     I came home today to an exciting burst of color in my terrarium.  My worries that I would miss the blooming of my orchids turned out to be unfounded, and  I look forward to updating on the blooms over the next few days.

     In general, my orchids fared quite well over the 2.5 weeks without watering.  As I expected, the mounted ones and the smaller seedlings were the most sensitive.  They show signs of dehydration, and many have lost a leaf.  However, I expect all to recover quickly. In contrast the potted herbs in my kitchen are all just dead dried husks.

     For the rest of my orchids, the wet terrarium seems to have worked wonderfully.  None of the larger orchids looked particularly parched.  A few pseudobulbs added some wrinkles, but that was about it.  


5 comments:

  1. Good news! They are hardier than we realize. I think your terrarium is very clever!

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  2. I love your terrarium! Glad the orchids are doing well :)

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  3. Great, so many flowers to come back to! Do I see psycho blooming?
    Will you post its individual pic, please?

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    1. Haha, I'll make 'psycho' the next post then.

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  4. Your experience here is so encouraging. I've been very reluctant to leave my orchids for more than a week to go on vacation. There's a 16 day Trafalgar cruise of the capital cities of the north that I've been eyeing for a while now but was hesitant to book it because I didn't want to leave my orchids for that long. Given your experience, I now feel more comfortable about leaving my orchids for 16 days.

    I have approximately 100 orchids that I grow here in Mississauga ON(near Toronto) in my kitchen on shelves in front of windows facing east, south and west.There`s also a large patio door that lets in lots of light too. My orchids are thriving. My kitchen is shaped like a giant bay window, and I do not use supplemental lighting. I put most of my orchids (not my paphs.) outside for the summer months. The orchids appreciate being outdoors for the summer and even the orchids that prefer cool temperatures bloom nicely for me because they get to live in the cooler temperature of September.

    Thank you for sharing your insights and experience about growing orchids.`I look forward to reading your future posts.

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