Orchid Seminar - February 9, 2019

Hi everybody. My name is Paul Price.
I am the vice president of the Vero
Beach Orchid Society.
I wanna welcome you guys here
to Busy Bee. We have a great
turnout today. Thank you for
coming down. Hopefully,
by the time you leave here today,
I will teach you a little bit
about orchids. Hopefully enough
to get you,
interested where you will buy
some more orchids.
I want to do a quick question
because we've got a pretty good
crowd here. How many people have
say one to ten orchids at home?
Raise your hand. Alright.
As I go up in numbers, drop your hands.
If you've got twenty to thirty orchids,
drop your hands.
Okay. Forty to fifty.
Fifty to a hundred.
A hundred to two hundred. Three hundred.
Four hundred.
You got to catch up.
Those of you that know when you
get into orchids you usually
start out with one that's given
to you as a gift,
and the hobby tends to grow from there.
We don't call it a hobby in
the industry. We call it an addiction.
The only cure for it is another orchid.
That's why I have a greenhouse
in the back yard the size of
their greenhouse,
with four hundred plants in it.
Once it starts,
it never stops and it just gets worse.
So I, you know,
once you get into orchids,
I hope you like ramen noodles
and peanut butter and jelly.
How many of you have let's do
a quick rundown.
How many of you have fail
phalaenopsis at home right now?
K. Most of them should be either
spiking or in spike or blooming
right now.
It's their time of year naturally
if you've got them out in the landscape.
It takes a it takes a little bit
for the ones that you've got in
the landscape to actually initiate
the flower spike in bloom.
Now is their normal time of bloom,
period. Usually,
didn't used to be able to buy
them before January.
Now with the way the growers are
growing them, they're growing
them in greenhouses where they
actually cool the greenhouses
down every night for about two
to three weeks,
where they initiate the flower spikes.
So, if you're not getting them to bloom,
if you've got them inside the house,
you want to put them outside so
they cool off every night.
Now, the temperature goes below
fifty degrees, you want to bring it in.
You know, if it goes down to
right about fifty, you should be okay,
but anything below fifty,
bring it inside so it doesn't
get that cold. Thales don't like
to get that cold.
What will happen is sometimes
the buds will fall off or,
if it's a really bad cold spell,
you can kill the plant.
How many of you have cattleyas at home?
Alright. Cattleyas are what you
typically associate with orchids
besides the phalaenopsis.
They used to use them for, corsages.
They've gotten away from that.
They really need to go back to it.
I wish the florists would get
on the ball and do that.
They're probably one of the most
recognized orchids, that you'll find.
They're actually very easy to grow,
especially out in the landscape.
How many of you grow grow your
orchids outside in in the yard?
Just pretty much about fifty
percent of you.
How many of you have put them
on trees in the landscape?
Actually taken them out of the pots
and attached them to the trees?
Yep. They do fantastic here in
Vero Beach because our climate
is exactly what they replicate
in the wild. So they will grow
very well in here, here in the climate.
There is an orchid,
there's actually two orchids
here in Vero Beach that have
been out on trees for over fifty
to sixty years.
One of them is bigger than my truck.
The other one was about the size
of both these tables put together.
One's in John's Island and one's out by,
not Homiston Park,
but what's the other park on
the north side? JC Park. JC Park.
It's actually probably about
three three or four blocks from JC Park.
And when that thing blooms,
usually in May and June,
there's a twenty foot halo around
the tree of flower spikes when
it blooms. It grows up in the crotch
of an oak tree.
And when it when it spikes out,
the flower spikes are about
eight to ten feet long and just
blooms its heart out.
Now they've been through all
the cold snaps that we've had.
They've been through all the hurricanes
out in the landscape without any issues.
So if you're concerned about
plants when you put them out in
the landscape, don't be.
They'll acclimate and do very well.
Just watch,
where you put it and how much
light it gets, and we'll go into
how much light orchids can take
in a little bit. Alright.
What I wanna do is brief you a little
bit on the different types of orchids,
and I'm gonna concentrate today
on the three main types that
you're gonna see in the marketplace,
predominantly, which are gonna
be the phalaenopsis, the catalayas,
and vandas.
I'm not gonna get too close to
this because I don't know if
it's gonna squelch or not.
How many of you grow vandas?
Okay. Great.
We'll fix that,
and the rest of you need to catch up.
I have a hundred of them in my backyard.
So every time it gets cold,
you see me running them all inside.
After the cold's gone,
I put them back outside.
So, that's always fun.
Thank you, sir. Okay.
After the program,
you guys all filled out a slip
for the raffle? Yes? Okay.
We'll be drawing four four raffle
tickets at the end,
so don't run off before,
before we're done.
What I wanted to talk about now
with the orchids is we'll start
with a phalaenopsis,
and then we'll move to cattleyas,
and then we'll go to bandas.
My favorite orchids to grow are
obviously bandas and a different
form of cattleyas. They're easy to grow.
They grow really well in the landscape.
Phalaenopsis, I tend to kill.
I I don't know why, but I kill them.
I can grow the others,
but it's just the watering regimen
that you have to have with them.
There are some tricks to get
around that,
and I'll show you how to do that
when we do a little bit of repotting,
during the the talk.
Phalaenopsis, everybody knows
what a fail is How many of you
know that this is now the number
one potted plant that's sold in
the country now it has now
replaced the poinsettia,
unfortunately though they're
growing them as throwaway plants.
People will buy them in bloom,
stick them on the counter in the house.
Once they're done blooming,
they throw them away,
they give them away,
or they just stick them outside,
forget about them, and, you know,
don't do anything with them.
Thales can be put out in the landscape.
They do need to be watered a little
bit more frequently,
and there's a reason for that,
and I'll show you the difference
between the the Thail and the Catalaea
and the Vanda as to why the re
watering requirements are a little
bit different.
Now, when you look at orchids,
how many of you know where to
put them according to how much
light they're gonna get?
What's the normal what's the normal
thing that everybody tells you
where an orchid grows?
Partial sun. Partial sun. Dappled light.
That's that's true and that's not true.
You can grow them in full sun.
If you acclimate them,
you cannot grow this orchid in full sun.
You'll crucify it. You'll cook it.
The cattleyas and the Vandas,
you can actually acclimate them
to grow out into some full sun.
So if you're going to put them
out in the landscape,
now is the time of year when you
wanna be doing it so that the sun
is not as intense and it's not as hot.
That way as the season goes on,
they have a chance to acclimate
to the brighter hotter sun.
And I'll talk about mounting in
a little bit. Now,
the reason I'm talking about
that is when you look at the leaves
on an orchid,
each leaf on the plants are
gonna tell you where it wants to grow.
If you look at a leaf on a plant
and consider it as a solar collector,
it's trying to collect light. Alright?
The bigger, the wider the leaf is,
the more light it's trying to collect,
so that's telling you that it's
actually growing in deeper shade.
Now, the longer thinner the leaf is,
that tells you that it's growing
in brighter light.
Now, there are, you know,
there's always the exception to
the rule,
but that's a basic way to tell
where you should be growing that orchid.
Now, if you've got an orchid and
it's not flowering,
you can't get it to bloom,
what's what's the one thing that
you should be doing with them?
I heard it. Who said it? The f word.
Absolutely right.
You should be fertilizing them.
If it's not blooming and you're
not getting it to do something,
how often are you fertilizing it?
How much light is it getting?
You'll be surprised at how much
light orchids actually will,
want to bloom. If it's not blooming,
stick it in an area where it
gets a little bit brighter light
and it should eventually flower for you.
The reason I talked about the,
leaf shape is it it tells you
how to or where to put it out
in the landscape so that you
know what to what to do.
And I want to show you something also.
I thought I had some sunburn on
this and I don't.
How many of you burned your
orchids in the sun?
Everybody knows what that looks like.
You get this big bleached out
spot and then it turns brown and
then you, you know,
that that material that part of
the leaf will usually fall off
or that leaf will fall off.
That happens especially when
the sun's starting to come back
up higher in the sky.
So this time of year,
start watching your orchids,
where you put them,
when you start putting them out
in the landscape.
Make sure that, you know,
during the middle of the day,
they're not getting blasted with
full sun.
If you're doing it around the south
side of the house and the sun's
beating down, watch your windows
behind the orchids because
sometimes that light can reflect
back on the plant and you don't
think that you're burning it,
but you can actually do that.
So, you know, those are a couple
of tips because I've done it myself.
The reason I like to talk about
the different leaf shapes is
because it shows you where you
can grow them or,
how much light they'll take.
I like to look for plants that
will do well out in the landscape,
that I know I can put on the side
of a palm tree or an oak tree
and just watch them grow and get
bigger and bigger and bigger.
I like larger orchids because
they give you more flowers.
They give you bigger flowers,
and it's just a bigger show.
Vanda's, let's talk a little bit
about Vanda's. Now,
you can see the leaf shape on
these guys. It's a longer leaf
and it's a skinnier leaf,
So that tells you it will grow
in actually very bright light.
Now if you look at all three of
these orchids, they're all nice
and bright, you know, kelly green.
They're not yellowish in any any
fashion. They pretty much a dark
green on them. That's telling
you that they've been growing
in in an orchid house or a shade house.
So they've not been getting full sun.
If you buy an orchid now and you
decide to put it out in the landscape,
be gentle with it,
expose it to the east side where
it gets morning light and that
way it can start adjusting as
the sun comes up.
As time goes on,
you can start adjusting it to
brighter and brighter light.
Once you get a Vanda out in
the landscape and it's happy,
it's getting enough light,
you can get it to bloom three
to four times a year, if not more.
They will actually bloom their
little hearts out.
The only issue with Vanda's is
you have to watch them like
the fails with cold weather.
Vandas don't like fifty degrees
or below. What happens with
the Vanda is the lower leaves
will turn yellow and they'll fall off.
Vanda's are probably one of
the most beautiful orchids that
you're gonna see besides some
of the bigger cattleyas.
The varieties that are out there
are unlimited,
and they will get rather big.
I've got a couple at the house that are,
I would say, seven feet tall, and,
you know, seven or eight kikis on them.
Everybody knows what a kiki is.
Kiki is Hawaiian for baby.
Kiki is actually what you would
consider a new growth or a new
plant growing off the bottom or
side of the plant.
So that's how you propagate and
get new ones also. The Pardon me?
K e I k e.
Can you tell us how you'd separate
that from the mop? Yes. I will.
I will when we do the reap when
we do the repotting.
Kiki's, you know, typically,
when you do a Kiki,
when you want to separate it
from the plant,
her question is how do you
separate it from the plant?
Kiki's, you want to try and
leave on there as long as possible.
They want to have at least four
roots on them, and those roots
need to be at least three to
four inches long before you try
and separate it from the main plant.
Usually what I recommend on
Vanda's is you take a clean
sterile razor blade and just
slice right at the base of the plant
from the Kiki to the, parent plant,
and it has to be a sterile clean-cut.
Does it does that help? Yes. Okay.
It's it it can be tricky because
you don't wanna cut the roots off.
So, you know, good luck.
Because I did a little they had
three of them on here,
and I thought mother plant,
everything died off. Okay.
Just once that happens,
just make sure that they have
enough roots and the roots are
long enough so that that Kiki
can actually support itself.
Because once you separate it,
the mother plant is not feeding
it anymore. So it has to be able
to to be able to feed itself. Okay?
Good.
Let's see.
Let's let's talk about, repotting.
How many of you have repotted
your own orchids or take them
to somebody else and go help?
I do that all the time.
It still hasn't worked.
Repotting is not as imposing or
difficult as you may think.
It's actually fairly simple.
It's easy to do.
Don't let it intimidate you.
When you get a plant that you've
had for a while like this,
this is in a four inch pot.
This obviously needs to be repotted.
It's outgrown the pot. The pot's done.
It was started in sphagnum moss
and now I've got an invasive
type of fern growing in it.
This plant needs to be taken out
of the pot, the roots need to
be cleaned off,
that fern needs to be taken out
of there, and and then it needs
to be repotted.
Now, once they get to this size,
you can either divide them and
make another plant out of, you know,
make several plants out of one
plant or you can leave it as one
plant and let it grow into a bigger
plant. I like the bigger plants
because they're they're better,
for showing and you get a better,
bloom out of them.
I'm not gonna divide this one
because when I pulled it out of
my greenhouse, I discovered a little
issue with it. Everybody sees
the white fuzzy stuff on the bottom
of the leaf,
and we can pass this around.
The white fuzzy stuff on the bottom
of the leaf is what you call mealy bug.
Oop. That's okay. They bounce.
Believe me, they fall off the bench
at home all the time.
The white stuff on the bottom
is actually mealybug or scale.
There's an easy way to get rid of that.
You can take,
just basic rubbing alcohol,
put it on a paper towel or a cotton
ball, saturate the paper towel
and cotton ball and just wipe it off.
It comes right off.
If you look at the top part of
the leaf where the mealybug is,
you'll see the leaf has turned
brown and yellow.
That's from the insect feeding
off the juices in the leaf.
So you do wanna when you're
looking at your orchids in your
collections, you wanna watch
your orchids and see that that's
not happening. Look at the top.
If you suspect that there's
something going on, turn the plant over,
look at the underside of the leaves.
Yes. You have a question?
Where's the furry thing?
That's the fern that's growing
in that pot.
So it's a really invasive fern
and the problem with that fern
is when you go to feed the orchid
that fern will absorb all the orchid
fertilizer before the orchid
actually gets it.
It'll soak it right up before
the orchid roots actually open
up and start absorbing that fertilizer.
So you don't wanna get that in there.
It will also choke out the roots
on the orchid. So you really
don't want that in that pot.
I've done a lot of mounting in
the landscape with people and
I used to use sphagnum moss to do my,
mounting with this stuff.
The problem with that is out in
the landscape is I found that
all the orchids that I've done
mounting with out in the landscape
now have that fern growing in them.
And they're on trees and it's
almost impossible to get out of them.
So I've stopped using sphagnum
moss when I mount orchids directly
on trees. Once you mount them
on the trees out of the pots,
you do have to water them more
frequently because they dry out
almost instantly. Yes. Question.
Mount them on the trees?
How do you actually mount them
on the trees?
I'll I'll cover that in a little bit.
Right after we get done with repotting,
I'll I'll show you guys and I'll
tell you how you can do it.
It's actually very easy.
There are only a couple of simple
basic rules to do it. Okay?
The reason I'm passing that
around to let you guys see what
what's going on is there are
ways to get rid of that.
I brought some products out here that,
Dan and Tina carry that you can use to,
eradicate that if you need to.
The, biggest problem with our
area is not so much scale anymore.
It's thrips. Everybody knows
what a thrip is? No.
A thrip is that little sliver
of a insect that looks like a little
tiny black grain of rice.
How many of you have gardenias at home?
You have thrips. I'll guarantee it.
You all if you've got an oak
tree in the yard, you've got thrips.
Thrips are what we call no see ums.
They're a tiny little insect and
what they do is they they have
a tongue on them that goes around
on the plant and actually rasps
the surface of the plant to get
the juices from the leaf of
the plant or from the flower buds.
They're our number one problem
in this area. The problem with
thrips now is they are now
resistant to every pesticide
we've got out there. Thrip.
Kinda like a little black dot,
but a little more elongated.
Really tiny. Really,
really tiny insects.
That's the number one problem right now,
and the University of Florida
is doing a study at,
at an orchid grower that I know of,
and they're trying to,
figure out what chemicals they
can use now to try and eradicate them.
Yes. Arthrips,
the insect that is harming the citrus?
No. That's a ciliate that causes
citrus greening,
totally different critter,
but just as as bad.
Yes.
If if you're out in your landscape
and you're being bitten and
you're not seeing mosquitoes and
your legs are itching, it's thrips.
Dan and Tina have a product here
that that's a cream that I started
using. You can put it on your legs,
and they will stop biting you.
It's a it's a a little cream
that they have here that's a herbal
remedy that you can actually put
on your legs. It smells kinda nice.
You put it on your legs and
thrips don't bite.
Mosquitoes won't bite you either.
I don't remember the name,
but ask ask anybody here and
they'll know what it is.
I think they had it in the orchid room,
in the aromatherapy. Yes.
Is there a biological control
for thrips? She's asking if
there's a biological control for thrips.
No. Not that I know of.
Unfortunately, it it just comes
with the territory.
It it's really been a big problem
with especially with a lot of
the orchid growers because they
blast all the flowers before
they actually bloom and it they
disfigure the flowers,
so their drips are number one problem.
There is a product here that you
can still use that's fairly effective.
Everybody knows what orthene is
or that fire ant controller that
says orthene on it or, oh,
there's another there's a,
industry name for acetate.
Acetate is is the chemical name
for orthene.
Acetate will actually somewhat
keep thrips under control,
but you have to spray it on a regular
basis and it stinks.
So if if you do have to use it,
you can use it.
Now to actually apply that stuff,
I usually recommend a pump up sprayer.
Put a couple of drops of soap
in there or spreader sticker.
Everybody knows what a spreader
sticker is? No.
Spreader sticker,
I'll I'll explain it this way.
When you take a shower,
you wash your hair.
If you don't rinse that shampoo out,
you've got this sticky mess in
your hair. Right? K.
The spreader sticker works on
the same basis.
When you put a spreader sticker
in with your chemicals,
whether it be a fungicide or a pesticide
, it actually creates a film and
it actually sticks to the plant.
The other thing is it makes it
it spread evenly over the surface
tension of the plant,
so it covers the entire plant.
Anytime you use a pesticide or
fungicide, you should be using
a spreader sticker.
That makes it more effective,
and it actually makes it work
instead of just pouring it on
the plant and having it drip off.
It actually leaves a residue on
the plant.
So and that also applies with
your fertilizer.
When you're feeding them,
add some spreader sticker to it,
and it will it will actually
make the fertilizer stick to the plant.
Yes, ma'am?
A spreader sticker,
is that a product named spreader
sticker? It is it is a product.
It is a product called spreader sticker.
Would it would soap do the same thing?
Bingo. Soap also does the same thing.
Well, I don't know that I'd use ivory.
I'd use something a little more gentle.
Dawn does very well.
I use Dawn because I use a lot of it,
and that's that's the way I was
taught by an orchid grower up
in Orlando is to always put soap
in with my fertilizer or my
insect insecticide or fungicide.
Usually, about a tablespoon,
to about two to three gallons.
So usually I think the dosage
rate they usually recommend is
a teaspoon per gallon.
Okay. And you put that in with
your fertilizer?
I put it in with fertilizer, fungicide,
or insecticide. Yes.
Now the other thing too is if
you're hesitant about using any
insecticides, when you're
fertilizing your orchids that
soapy water any soft bodied
insect like aphids, the juvenile scales,
it will kill them on contact.
How many of you know Dawn
dishwashing detergent kills
fleas on contact? Yeah. I know that.
It is wonderful as a dog bath.
I have a great Pyrenees.
Her coat is about six inches thick,
and let me tell you,
the only thing I found that
kills fleas in her undercoat is Dawn.
I've tried everything else.
Nothing works. Dawn kills them
dead instantly.
What I want to do is show you
guys how to repot the different
types of orchids and I'm probably
gonna pick on one of you or two
of you and we'll show you guys
how to repot. I'm not gonna just do it.
I'm gonna have somebody come up.
We're going to explain it and
show you and walk you through it.
This is a hands on class.
It's not just me up here talking.
So who has Cadillias at home?
Come on up. What's your name? Kathy.
Hi, Kathy.
Come on back and we're gonna
show you how to repot a cattleya.
Now Dan and Tina have have some
orchids that are back in their
hospital area,
and they have a couple that need
some repotting,
so we pulled them as an example.
Anytime you go to repot an orchid,
the first thing you want to do
is usually wet it down,
get the roots wet and,
actually let them loosen up.
So when you go to pull it out
of the pot, the roots don't
stick to the side,
they'll usually release, thank you,
they'll usually release and you
can pull the plant back out of the pot.
If it's a clay pot and it's
grown all over the clay pot, sometimes,
you know, if it's a smaller pot,
you could just bust the pot up,
peel the pot away, and then, you know,
pull the plan out and clean
the roots off. So what I'm gonna
have you do is take this out of
that pot. So I wanna weigh it?
No. No. Don't worry about it this time.
Just pull it out. Okay.
Now pull it out over here.
What I'd like you to do is go
ahead and clean everything off
the old roots.
What you wanna do is you wanna
take all the old potting material
out of the plant because after
a period of time it rots And
once it starts to break down and
rot you start losing the roots
on the plant.
And typically, you know,
if it's a bigger plant,
this is also the time to divide it.
Clean it up, clean up the old
dead rotted roots,
and you wanna get it ready to
repot and put it into a new pot.
Do they go into shock like another
plant would? Do they go into
shock once you do that? Yes.
You never wanna do it to a plant
that's in spike or flowering.
You wanna wait till it's done
flowering to repot it on the cattleyas.
Just about there Notice
anything about the roots?
Some of them have fallen off. Yep.
Some of the roots are falling off.
The other thing is when you look
at roots on an orchid the roots
on an orchid should be white
like on the Vanda see the big
fleshy white roots.
That's what healthy roots on
an orchid should look like. Okay.
This thing, has been in a pot.
The old roots, are pretty much shot.
So most of that needs to be cleaned off.
That's not gonna kill the plant.
What you're gonna do is you're
gonna stimulate it to put out new roots.
So when you put it in a pot,
it will regrow real quick.
Yes, sir? How do you get the roots
to release when you're using
those wooden static type? That's tough.
With the wooden slap baskets,
how do you get them to how do
you get the roots to release? You don't.
Sometimes you just have to go
through and cut them and pull
the plant out.
With Vanda's, I tend to,
if I have to take a Vanda out
of a basket, I destroy the basket
and peel it out piece by piece.
If it's one of those little
square plastic baskets that they
start them out in,
I'll cut the basket away and
leave as many roots intact as possible.
Okay? That's it. Great. Good job.
Thank you. Now,
everybody knows that orchids,
how many how many of you think
how let me see how I can word this.
How long do you guys think an orchid
lives? Years. Years and years.
How many years and years? Fifty?
Sixty? Seventy. Seventy, maybe?
Okay. If you look at this plant,
they they grow in kind of like
a daisy chain.
Can I get you to hold this up?
Sure. And I'll show.
As they grow, hold it just like that.
As they grow, there's a front
side and a back side to an orchid.
On every orchid,
it doesn't matter what kind of
orchid it is.
The backside of the orchid is
the old growth.
The frontside of the orchid is
the new growth.
And the new growth,
you're going to usually be able
to tell because it still usually
has the white paper on it or
that paper is usually still
green as it's growing.
Now on an orchid when you do repotting,
the old backside of the orchid
you want to take that off.
If it doesn't have a leaf on it,
clean it up.
Everybody knows what a pseudobulb is?
No? Pseudobulb means false bulb,
like an onion or a tulip.
The stem on the orchid from
the leaves to this part is called
the pseudobolt. Alright.
These actually store food and
water for the plant so they keep
the plant happy in between water
watering. Alright?
Any orchid that has a pseudobulb
likes to dry out in between watering,
so don't keep it wet all the time.
Let it dry out a little bit.
Now, when it's time to repot
these guys and you want to clean
them up and you want to put them
in a new pot, there are a couple
of tips,
that you want to do when you're
doing this.
Anytime you use any kind of a cutting
tool, you want to sterilize it.
Whether it be your garden clippers
at home or if you've got dedicated
pair of shears,
that you use to do your repotting.
Before you start working on a plant,
you want to go through and sterilize it.
You can do it with alcohol.
You can do it with bleach and water,
but the clippers need to sit in
there for at least twenty to
thirty minutes before they're sterile.
Now with a plumber's torch like this,
you saw how easy it is.
I'm going to set this thing down
for a second so I can talk to you guys.
So if I'm not loud enough,
I'll try and yell.
When you go to use this,
all you have to do is just turn
the valve on, click the button
and you've got a flame.
Very easy to use.
If you're an avid orchid grower,
I would suggest that you pick
up one of these.
The reason being is if you trim
an orchid,
that you're cleaning up and you
haven't sterilized these clippers
before you've used them from a previous
orchid, if that previous orchid
has an issue, you're now going
to transfer it to this orchid.
So every time you sterilize or
every time you repot you want
to make sure that your tools are clean.
Now it's not just disease problem.
They're finding out in the orchid
world that orchid viruses are
a real big problem because a lot
of the old orchid growers did
not do this.
And you'd be surprised how many
orchids typically are virused.
Now because this is hot I'm
going to do this for you.
When you repot an orchid,
when you divide,
if you're going to divide it,
you want to make sure that you
have at least four good strong
healthy pseudo bulbs.
Now this one has one, two, three,
four, five, six, seven, eight,
nine pseudobulbs on there.
Two of the pseudobulbs in the back
don't have leaves on them.
They're actually not doing
anything for the plant so you
want to clip them off and take them off.
Now, see if I real quick.
All you want to do is go back in,
in between the last pseudobulb
that has a leaf and the next
pseudobulb back and a simple clip.
Easy? Easy. Easy peasy.
Now when you're looking at the orchid
too, when you divide it,
look at that cut.
You want to make sure that there's
not like a purple ring around
the inside of that white tissue.
If there is, keep cutting up
until that tissue is clean and white.
Now where is it? Pardon me? Yeah.
When you divide these and I'll
I'll come across the way for you guys.
When you divide these,
you wanna look at this cut.
Make sure that there's not a purple
ring on there. If there is a purple
ring, cut forward on the plant
until you get rid of that purple ring.
But try and leave as many
pseudobulbs on a plant if you have to.
Now part you just cut off,
are you gonna replant that and
make another plant out of that?
That's done. That's dead? That's dead.
Oh, okay.
The back half of that, you know,
sometimes you can get a plant
when you divide it if you've got
an old pseudo bulb like that,
you can stand it up in a in a pot,
leave it in a pot,
and eventually one of the back
eyes might wake up and start
growing again.
You can start a plant like that,
but those are so small it didn't
look like they had a decent eye on them.
And an eye is where your new
growth is gonna come from and
it's gonna come from this little
bump right down here at the bottom
of the plant. Right now it's
covered in that white paper.
That white paper eventually
you'll see it swell and then
that green growth will start.
And most of the orchids right
now are just coming into their
peak growing period,
so you're gonna see that a lot
of them start waking up and
you're gonna start seeing new growth.
Now, how many of you have cinnamon
at home? Everybody has cinnamon at home.
Cinnamon is actually a bark.
It is wonderful so when you go
to divide your orchid it's anti fungal,
it's anti bacterial so when you
go to divide your orchids and
you make a cut on it just
simply put a little cinnamon on
it and it seals that wound so
disease and pests don't get into
the orchid. Easy tip,
that's an old school trip trick.
Not a lot of people will tell
you about that still,
but some of the old orchid growers
used to do that.
I still do it on my plants at
home and it's just an easy way
to seal that up and get it sterile
and cleaned up. Now, repotting.
Repotting is always fun.
Like I said there's a front and
a back to an orchid.
The back's the back side of
the old growth.
The front's the new growth in the front.
Now, cattleyas are only gonna
bloom off of new growth.
They're not gonna bloom on the old
growth. So you want the new growth.
Now grab this clay pot and grab
this clay pot.
Now if I was going to repot,
which pot would I use? The big one.
Okay, let's do this.
Raise your hand if you think
the small one. Okay.
Put your hands down.
Raise your hand if you think
it's the big one.
All of you with your hands up now,
you're wrong.
Orchids don't like to be over potted.
Now when you, they like to be
a little bit root bound so they
like to be tight in a pot.
They don't like to have a lot
of room to wiggle around and
that's just too big for that right now.
Okay? So you wouldn't wanna use
this pot. Even though, you know,
you want it to get that big,
it's still too early to put it
into this size pot.
So typically what you want to
do is you want to find an orchid
where it sits down in it and
still has some room to grow in
to the pot. See? Yep. Alright.
Now when you go to repot it,
this is where I put you to work.
Bring it in. The front and back
of the orchid, if you put, yes ma'am?
I'm not sure if Dan and Tina are
carrying them and I don't see
anybody from Busy Bee here.
Lowe's Home Depot carries.
Lowe's and Home Depot. Online.
Yep. Online.
Locally Lowe's and Home Depot
are the easiest source.
At the bureau orchid show there
will be an orchid supply grower
or an orchid supply person there
that will carry all that stuff.
Yes. Somebody had a question?
Oh, where do you find the clay
pots these days? Home Depot and Lowe's.
It's it's getting harder and
harder to find them.
The big the big ten inch,
twelve inch pots like this anymore,
they don't make them anymore.
You can't find them.
If you've got them, hold on to them.
They're gold.
So, I went to McKee Jungle Gardens
to help the girl that's redoing
the orchids there and I looked
at the side of their greenhouse
and they had two pallets full
of those things.
You should see my eyes glaze over.
If you have old clay pots kind
of stacked in the garage or something,
I think a lot of these things.
Is there any process you need
to go through before you replant
something? Yes.
If if you've got old pots,
say if you've got a plant that
you're pulling out of a clay pot,
before you use it on a new pot or plant,
it needs to be disinfected and cleaned.
So what I usually recommend is,
soak them in bleach and water
for twenty four hours, scrub them,
soak them in bleach and water
again and then soak them in
clear water for a day.
So it's one day soak them in
bleach and water, take them out,
scrub them, put them in new
bleach and water the next day,
take them out, the next day you
put them in just fresh water,
let them soak the fresh water up.
Yeah, it's it it can be.
I mean, you can cheat.
You can take it and soak it in water,
bleach water, scrub it,
rinse it off and set it out.
But I'm a little impulsive about
or not impulsive, but I'm OCD on it.
I like to make sure that I've
got it thoroughly clean.
I do an extra step at home.
Once I've got it out of the the
clean water and it's dried out,
I turn my oven on four hundred
and it goes in the oven for four
hundred for two hours.
I sterilize that pot again. Yes ma'am?
Can you put them in a dishwasher?
You can. I don't think it gets
hot enough to really sterilize it,
and it doesn't really it will
sterilize your plates but I
don't think it will sterilize
it enough for the bacteria or
virus with orchids.
No, don't put it in the microwave.
Not good. That's not, no not good.
It'll explode.
If there's any moisture in that
clay pot it will explode.
It won't be pretty.
And that's the same thing with the oven.
If you put them in the oven and
there's any moisture left in that pot,
they could explode.
And when you do put them in the oven,
if you're gonna cook them and
sterilize them in the oven,
turn the oven off once you're
done and let it cool down
naturally and slowly.
Just don't pull them out hot
because they could they could
explode too. Yes, ma'am?
Do you recommend the bleach,
on loop pads also? No.
Unless, you know,
she asked if I recommend bleaching
new pots. Typically,
when you're buying them from
the store and they're new,
they don't have any pathogens
from other plants on them,
so I typically don't.
I guess if I was really OCD,
I probably would, but I I, you know,
I'm lazy. Know,
when you have four hundred orchids
at home, you wanna try and go
as fast as possible.
I don't do that when they're brand new.
But if, you know, if they're used,
yes. Yes, I do. Alright.
Now, front and back of an orchid.
When you put an orchid in the pot,
if you put this orchid in the middle,
what's going to happen?
The new growth is going to grow
out and it's going to grow back
out of the pot almost immediately.
So when you put the orchid in the pot,
you wanna take the backside of
the orchid and put it back against
the edge of the pot.
You want that plant to grow into
that pot so that it doesn't
outgrow the pot within one season.
Typically, repotting,
you really should be doing it
with regular orchid bark about
every two years here in Florida.
That stuff starts to break down
and decompose within about two years,
if not sooner, because of our
heat and humidity. Alright?
So you put it in like that. Yeah.
Do I put bark in first? Nope.
You can put it in just like that.
Okay. Now, you know,
normally orchids will grow flat
like that and the pseudobulb, you know,
the modified stem,
the rhizome will grow flat and
the pseudobulbs will stand up,
but every once in a while you
get one that's growing vertically
like this. Don't be afraid of
potting that, just take it.
The backside of the plant goes
down in there and then you just
fill in with orchid bark.
You want the front end to be
above or just at the very surface
of the orchid bark when you put
the bark in there.
Go ahead, fill it in and just
jam it in there.
When you repot them,
when you're putting the orchid
bark back into the pots,
you wanna make sure that that
orchid bark is in there,
that you fill all the voids,
that the plant is actually seeded
in there very tightly so that
it doesn't wiggle.
If the wind starts blowing and
those leaves start to wiggle,
when the new roots start to grow out,
the roots will rub against the bark
and it will kill the root tip,
So, it won't reattach in the pot.
Did you put anything in before
the Orchard bark? Some people do.
Some people put Styrofoam peanuts.
Some people don't.
I don't have any peanuts here
because I was scared they would
blow all over everything,
so I didn't bring any today.
We're kind of cheating.
You can put one layer of Styrofoam
peanuts in the bottom.
What that does is it helps alleviate,
the water from pooling in on the roots.
Alright. It also helps you where
you're not using as much orchid
bark when you repot.
Now, let me let me give you that
for a second.
Now see she's got this potted in here.
She's got it nice and tight.
The plant doesn't really want
to wiggle around.
The new growth is right at the right
at the top, right at the surface
and it's it's seeded in here and
it's rooted in.
It well, it's not rooted in,
but it's seeded and it's it's
nice and tight in there so it
doesn't really wiggle around.
There are some tricks and some
tools that you can use to help
make sure that that plant holds
still when you do repot it.
These are called orchid clips.
These are rhizome well,
what they call orchid rhizome clips.
What they do is they actually
go across the top of the plant
and they hold the plant down
into the pot. Now,
I buy them where they're a little
bit longer so that I can use
them in big pots or, smaller pots.
So I just cut them down to the size
of the pot that I need.
When you go to put these in,
the back part goes over the edge
of the pot. Sometimes you have
to kind of squeeze it in and
tighten it up a little bit so
that it actually holds on to the pot.
What's supposed to happen is
this back end of the wire is
supposed to grab onto the side
of the pot. So when you go to put it in,
I usually go on the backside of the pot,
go in across the top of the pseudo
bulb just like this.
Push it in and push it down and
it actually will hold that pot in there.
I could wiggle it.
That plant's not going anywhere.
Okay? Good job. Thank you.
You did it perfect. Thank you.
Absolutely perfect. That was wonderful.
Alright. Now,
I told you guys about sunburn.
This plant has a little spot of
sunburn on it. You see the white
spot on the leaf?
That's what sunburn looks like
after it's been burned.
Now, phalaenopsis.
Everybody buys fails.
They wanna take them home.
They wanna put them into a,
decorator pot, and they wanna
make them look nice and pretty
on the dining room table or the,
the kitchen countertop.
How many of you know that you
can actually repot a phalaenopsis
while it's in spike? Nobody?
You can actually repot a phalaenopsis
orchid while it's in spike or in flower.
It won't set it back.
Just be gentle with it.
How many of you have fails at home?
I'm looking for a victim.
Raise your hands one more time.
I heard that.
Hi. What's your name? Sherry. Hi Sherry.
Sherry, have you repotted fails before?
Yes. Okay. Then you know what
you're doing.
Okay. Alright.
When your repot fails, like I said,
you can do them while they're in spike,
or in bloom, so it's not a real
big issue.
I'll let you go ahead and pull
the plant out of the pot.
Yes ma'am. Yeah go ahead and
peel it out here.
We're going to let the old
sphagnum moss go into the landscape.
What she's doing is she's taking
all that old sphagnum moss off
of the root ball.
With sphagnum moss in the state
of Florida with the humidity and
the rain that we get,
that that spagna moss breaks
down in a year.
Spagna moss should be redone every year,
not every two years.
Can you turn around for us a little bit?
There we go.
Now what you're going to find
when you start repotting fails
is there's an outer layer of
sphagnum moss. The growers when
they go to take them out of
the initial little pots that
they start them out in,
has one little plug of sphagnum moss.
When they go to repot,
they take that plant out of the pot,
they take another layer of
sphagnum moss, they pack it
around the initial root ball on
the seedlings and they just let
it grow into that.
What I want you to do when you
repot these guys is clean all
the old sphagnum moss off these
things because it will rot
eventually and that old sphagnum
moss will rot the roots,
out on the fail.
So you wanna get rid of all that
old material on it. Yes, ma'am?
You said you know whether to use that?
That's a good question.
She asked how do you know whether
to use sphagnum moss or do you
use orchid bark?
Where do you grow your orchids at?
Inside the house?
How many of you grow them out
in the landscape? Alright.
The difference is this,
when you're growing fails,
and especially fails if you're
growing them outside,
we don't really grow cattleyas
in sphagnum moss, so, you know,
we're going to ignore the the cattleyas
and the bandos.
Thales are pretty much the only
ones that we really grow in
sphagnum moss.
If you're growing them inside
or under a covered roof,
you want to grow them in sphagnum
moss and grow them in a plastic pot.
If you're growing them out in
the landscape during the summer
months here, we get afternoon
rains every day.
That plant will never, you know,
dry out a little bit.
You don't want to grow it in
sphagnum moss because that moss
will stay wet and it'll rot the roots.
Okay? How did we do? Did pretty good.
The bark? Yeah. Yeah.
You can use bark on Phalaenopsis.
If you're growing them out in
the landscape, grow them in
baskets or grow them in pots,
but just grow them if you're
gonna grow them out where they
get rained on, grow them with bark.
There's just a little bit left in there.
You've got most of it. Okay. Okay.
Now, they did bring me a couple pots.
Where'd I put them?
Okay. Okay. We're gonna put this Okay.
We're gonna put this in the center
of the pot. Right.
Now I wanna give you a tip.
With let me let me and I'm a put
this down for a second.
When you grow Fales real quick,
the Fale root system is a little
bit different than on a Catalaea.
The fail root system grows from
the bottom of the plant and it
grows out like a spider.
When your repotting fails what
you want to do is you want to
get a little bit of moss to put
up underneath the roots to support
those roots.
Easy trick to do, just take a little,
take a little bit of moss just
like a little ball.
Well no if you're growing them
outside use bark but set the roots
down in and fill in with bark.
Okay. But with fails with fails
with sphagnum moss,
see how I'm kind of cradling
the roots over the top of that
that sphagnum moss?
Then what you wanna do is wrap
the roots down around that that
little ball of sphagnum moss.
Then you want to cover the outside
of those roots now with sphagnum moss.
Be be generous. Don't hold back.
I've been in Apopka where you
see the orchid nurseries and
they've got, you know,
ten or twelve ladies back in
potting stations up and down
the aisles of the orchid house
and they've got these big tables
and it's just overflowing with
wet sphagnum moss.
And they'll take pots of these
things in an assembly line and
they'll just take them in,
pop them in there and just slap
it on there and stuff it in
the pot and they're done like that.
That's for inside the house but
outside I see it in there. Yeah.
Go ahead. Keep going. Yeah.
See that's why I never use
sphagnum moss. Is that wet? Yes.
When you use sphagnum moss it
comes to you like this dry.
You need to take this, take it out,
put it in a bucket like this and
fill it with water,
let it soak up the water and
it's going to fluff up.
Perfect. Now,
you should be able to just stuff
that down into the pot.
See how she's got a big mound
of moss around the outside of that?
It's gonna need more moss to
hold it in the top.
That's okay, just tuck a little
bit in there. Don't cram it down though.
When you're repotting you want
that moss to be firm,
not compacted in there.
You want it to be a little bit
light and loose but you want
that orchid to sit in there firmly.
You don't want it to move around a lot.
When aren't the roots supposed
to get air? Yeah.
That's why you don't that's why
you don't pack. Oh, so okay.
If you pack it real tight and
really jam it in there,
you don't get enough air space
in between the roots.
How do we do? Perfect.
Okay. Now she's got this in here.
It's nice yes, ma'am?
I noticed you're putting that
in a plastic pot and not a an orchid
pot. When when should you use
just plastic and when should you
use something with all the holes
in the sun? With with phalaenopsis,
because they don't have pseudobulbs,
they can't store food and water.
They need to be watered on a regular
basis. If,
if you're growing them inside,
you want them to retain as much
moisture as possible,
so I recommend going into a plastic pot.
If you're growing outside in
the landscape, you want to put
orchids in a clay pot or a basket
so that the water actually drains
off like during the summer when
we have those torrential rains.
You wanna make sure that they
have a chance to drain off and
dry out a little bit. Very good.
She did a great job.
Now that orchid that orchid is
now repotted,
and it's ready to go for the next
bloom season. Now the thing with
phalaenopsis, everybody gets a fail.
What do you do with it once it's
like this? Doesn't have any
flowers on it. Who knows what
to do with it? Cut it off. Cut it off?
No. No. No. You got it. Louder.
Leave it alone. Leave it alone.
Why? Mic microflowers again. Right.
But there's a trick to that.
When you're doing when you're
do it might some some phalaenopsis
species will put a kiki off on the end.
Sometimes they will,
sometimes they won't.
If it's a smaller plant and
you're just repotting it and you
want that plant to get a little
bit bigger, I recommend cutting
the flower spike off.
Let that plant rest.
Let it build itself up for the next
season so that when the next
bloom comes around the following year,
that's a bigger, stronger plant.
So you get bigger,
stronger flower spikes and flowers.
And sometimes you'll get double
spikes on them too.
So I usually, on a small plant,
will recommend cutting it off.
On a plant that's good sized,
that has decent roots on it,
that I've just repotted,
and I wanna clean that up,
I will go through and I'll cut
it back above the second node.
If you look on a phalaenopsis
flower spike, there's a ring every so,
every two or three inches on
the flower spike.
Those are called the nodes on
the flower spike.
Usually what I'll recommend is
going back through,
count up from the bottom and
there's one down at the bottom,
there's another one here.
I usually start at the one that's
just above the plant and count
up two and I'll cut it off right there.
With at this time of year,
we're still getting cool at night.
If you set this back outside later on,
after you've repotted it,
sometimes it will initiate a secondary
flower spike.
So you can sometimes trick it
into getting another bloom out of it.
Okay? Yes, ma'am?
Would that also work if you
would you you bought it in the supermarket
, it bloomed, the blooms all died,
you didn't repot it,
everything looks great. Yes.
Do you still do the same thing?
Yes. If you buy it and you take it home,
it's bloomed out, you didn't repot it,
you can do that also.
You can actually help them to
initiate a flower spike.
You just need to make sure that
they're cooling down every evening
for about three weeks,
so that they initiate that flower spike.
Somebody over here had a question?
When you go to cut it and I'm
gonna do it on this one just to
show you guys how to do it.
Like I said, always use a sterilized
tool. And you had a question back there?
She asked me, you know,
she's told me that she's growing
her orchids under cover.
They don't get rained on at all,
do they? Okay. They're not getting
rained on and she's growing in
clay pots and in bark. You can do that.
I'm not telling you you can't.
Everybody's gonna be a little
bit different. I'll be honest with you.
You can talk to five different
orchid growers,
and they're all gonna tell you
something different.
Try and find my recommendation
for that is try and find somebody
that that you see what they're doing,
and they're growing well.
And if they're in your area,
try and stick to theirs their ideas.
For those of you that want a hands on,
get a hold of her.
I kill fail, so I'll tell you.
I'm I'm honest about that.
You can do that,
but with with bark and clay pots
you need to realize that those
roots are gonna dry out a lot
faster so you may need to water
a little more bit more frequently.
With moss with moss,
when you put that plant in the sink
and you water it, you fill the pot up,
let it soak up all that water,
let it sit there for a couple
of minutes, fill the pot up again,
let it drain out,
and then put it back where you're
going to keep it as, you know,
a decorative item. Alright?
Now I've sterilized my tools.
Count up from the second, node.
Make a simple clip.
And what else do we do? Seal that wound.
Put put a little bit of cinnamon
on that.
And that just seals it up and it's done.
Now if you put that back out,
it gets it gets exposed to cold
water every evening. It should respike.
This time of year with,
the our weather pattern,
I'm expecting it to put out a secondary
spike. Yes, sir? Sir? Okay.
Us ones that all ours are on
trees or on boards, probably,
I'm still with that too.
Things like that.
What do we do about repotting them,
do we? We get rid of You don't.
If if they're actually attached
to the tree Yeah. Beautiful.
Just leave them alone.
Let mother nature take care of them.
You don't have to do once they
get to a certain size,
what he asks is if you're
attaching them out in the landscape,
what do you do about repotting them?
Then you actually don't have to.
That orchid will grow and continue
to grow and grow and grow.
Remember I asked you guys a question?
I'll get to you in just a second.
I asked you guys, you know,
how long an orchid will live.
You know, like I've said, we've got two,
you know, two really big orchids
here in Indian River County that
I know that the plants have been
on those trees for sixty years,
close to sixty years.
So they'll go a long time.
An orchid will continue to grow
and grow and grow and grow,
and be alive for a long time.
I've got something that
had a greenhouse,
that had a really nice collection
from a gentleman up in Melbourne.
His name the gentleman's name
up in Melbourne is Joe Grazafi.
Joe has probably hybridized more
orchids than anybody in the state
of Florida, and probably most
of the United States.
Joe's a phenomenal orchid grower.
But Joe, back in his early days,
went to an orchid show and bought
an orchid, from a vendor.
I think he said he paid six
hundred dollars for it.
Now that plant was Catalaea,
I'm gonna call it Lutamaniana.
The name for it back in the early
days was speciosum.
No, specioisima was the name.
Really weird name.
But this is actually that orchid,
it's Catalea ludaminiana.
This plant,
this is a piece of the original
plant that was awarded in nineteen
o one.
It was awarded by the Royal
Horticultural Society in England.
The plant was first discovered,
I think, in eighteen fifty four,
and this plant is that old.
It's just a piece of it.
So it's it's really, you know,
this is a small back bulb division
that I was lucky enough to be
given as as, you know, a favor.
I'm lucky to get it.
It's probably one of the more
exclusive orchids I've got in
my collection,
and I'm lucky to have that.
But that's that's you know,
I brought it because of its age.
It doesn't look all that great
right now. When I got it,
it only had three pseudobulbs on it.
So it's it's slowly starting to
get there. In the next couple
of years I expect it to look a lot
better. So it's been potted now
for about, two years now.
No, about a year. I'm sorry.
About a year. So that's that's
something neat and it's it's one
of those heritage heritage orchids
that you just don't see very often.
John Odom down in Fort Pierce
has some that he has in the collection
that are you know brother and
sister to this this one.
So they're all from the same
plant from Joe.
Vanda's, let's talk about Vanda's.
How many of you are growing a Vanda?
Okay. How often do you water
your Vanda's? Be loud. Exactly.
Not enough. I heard that. Who was that?
You're very you're very wise
with Vanda's. Vanda's like a lot
of water.
You know, sometimes during the heat
of the summer, they like water
twice a year.
On a Vanda, when you're growing them,
the more roots you have on that plant,
the happier the plant's going to be,
the more flowers you're going to get,
and the bigger the plant is
gonna get when it when it grows.
So Twice a day. Twice a day.
Did I say twice a year? Yeah.
Oh, okay. Oh, well. You got me.
With Vanda's, you you can see
the roots on these.
They've they've wrapped the
roots up in a circle.
This was growing in a different pot.
They've wrapped the roots into
a circle and stuffed it down
into the basket.
What's gonna happen with this
plant as time goes on,
you're gonna see the roots start
hanging down and you'll get a bunch
of roots on the bottom.
Like I said, the more roots you have,
the bigger the plant's gonna be,
the more flowers you're gonna get,
and the bigger the flowers are
gonna get.
Now, these plants,
if you're growing bandas,
are fertilizer hogs.
They love to be fed.
They like a lot of food.
They also like to be watered daily.
If not during the heat of the summer,
twice a day.
The only thing with watering
them twice a day during the later
part of the day, only water the roots,
not the whole plant.
So in the morning,
you can get the whole thing wet.
In the afternoon,
just get the roots wet. Okay?
Now, let's talk about feeding orchids.
How many of you feed your orchids
once a week? Raise your hands.
How many of you feed once every
two weeks? Once every month?
Come on you guys. Once every two months?
Three months? Alright.
It's not gonna grow if you don't
feed it. You gotta feed it.
The reason being is the orchid
potting material is only there
to hold it in place.
It doesn't give that plant any
nutritional value at all.
It doesn't give it any food.
Now, the orchids that are on
the landscape, the neat thing
about the orchids in the landscape,
once they get on a tree,
the roots will spread all over
the tree and you'll start getting
insects, leaf detritus, dirt, dust,
I mean bird poop.
I mean, you'll get all kinds of
stuff on the roots.
So it will start decomposing and
feed the roots on an orchid in
the landscape. But if you're
growing in a pot,
it's not getting any food.
So what you're gonna see with
a plant is if you're not fertilizing
it enough is the top will keep growing,
especially on a band up,
but you'll find the lower leaves
will turn yellow and they'll fall off.
So you have to feed them.
Now what fertilizer do I recommend?
The fertilizer you actually put on them.
Yeah. Better Grow Better Grow
actually makes two very nice formulas.
One is a growth formula and
that's your orchid plus.
It's gonna give you everything
it needs to produce new growth
and that's your first number,
the twenty. The fourteen is
going to help you with, flowering.
The thirteen is going to help
you with root growth. Alright?
Now, the other fertilizer that
they have is a bloom, bloom booster.
Everybody knows what the middle
number is? It's not nitrogen. Yes.
It because nitrogen, phosphorus,
and potassium, it's a combination
of all three elements. Right.
Nitro nitrogen, phosphorus,
and potassium, NPK. Okay?
Now the middle number, the phosphorus,
we live in Indian River County
and unfortunately,
we have a river with a problem
and our waterways a problem and
it's from phosphorus in fertilizers.
There are some fertilizer products
out there that don't have
phosphorus in them, that you can use,
but you have to know where to
go to get them.
They don't I don't think there's
anybody locally that sells them.
The orchid supply dealer that
will come to the Vero Beach
Orchid Show at the end of April
will have it, and it's called
a Cal Mag fertilizer, c a l dash m a g.
And it doesn't have the phosphorus
in it. So, it's actually probably
one of the better fertilizers.
Now, the head grower for Better Grow is,
Rob Palmer and Rob has a greenhouse
over in Myakka City over towards
Sarasota, that area.
He's now producing a fertilizer
that is cal mag that also has
seaweed in it, kelp, that he sells,
you know, himself as his own product,
and that's what I'm using at home.
I I don't play around with the other
stuff. I use a balanced fertilizer
with a couple of extra goodies in it.
Yes. When do you use the green
and the pink together?
Do you use them both together or what?
No. You don't use them together.
You use them separately. Okay.
At the same when you do one,
you do the other also? No.
When when you use these two fertilizers,
use the green bag.
Say if you water once a week,
use the green bag.
Say we have four weeks in a month,
three weeks, you're using this.
One week in the month,
you're using this. Okay?
Now when you when you mix this up,
remember to put a little bit of
soap in there too so it actually
sticks to the plant.
I don't mix it together,
but I spray one and then I got
the other and I spray it again
with the other one. Nope.
Use always use them separately.
Don't use them together. Oh, shit.
I have a gentleman out on the barrier
island that started with the Orchid
Society. He lived in Grand Harbor
in a condo,
had his orchid collection hanging
from out in front of the condo.
In pots, they all look presentable.
They all look nice and clean and pretty.
His neighbors didn't like them.
They didn't like looking at the pots.
They just thought it was ugly.
So he bought a house.
When he bought the house,
we ended up his initial collection
was eight hundred orchids. Oh.
Oh, wow. We ended up putting
them all out in the landscape.
Once he bought the house,
he bought a house with three or
four oak trees on the property.
Those oak trees are covered from
top to bottom now.
Even some of the palm trees are
just covered.
Last the last time we we stopped
counting, how many orchids he
had put in the landscape at
thirty five hundred.
And the robellinis he's got on
the side yard,
we put the little miniature
phalaenopsis all up and down
the robellinis and when they
come into bloom,
they're absolutely spectacular.
Or is it just nature taking care of you?
Nature taking care of themselves.
Yes, ma'am.
I'm sure when you have a cold snap,
although there's, like,
a reason how you protect the indoor
landscape. How do you protect
the forest? That depends.
Once they're in the landscape
and they're on the trees,
what will happen is the canopy
will protect them from frost.
If we're gonna go down below
fifty and we're gonna go towards
a a really hard frost or or freeze,
all bets are off.
You'd be surprised at how well
they will acclimate on the tree
and hold up against weather like that,
even a hurricane. They'll hold on.
After the hurricane,
you need to spray them,
with a disinfectant or fungicide
to stop, you know,
any cuts or wounds from stuff
flying into them.
But they'll actually do really
well out in the landscape.
There's something about putting
them on a tree insulates them
against the cold.
Now if you were to take a pot,
an orchid in a pot and hang it
from the tree, probably if we
had a really hard freeze,
it would die while the plant
sitting next to it that's attached
to the tree would live without
a problem. It's just bizarre to watch.
Yes, ma'am. Okay.
When at what temperature outdoor
orchids that are hanging from trees,
when do you start fertilizing?
Is it too early right now? No.
Orchids are growing year round.
Now, they're not putting on new
new actual growth this time of year.
They slow down,
especially on on the cattleyas.
But there's the roots are still growing.
And right now, you're coming
into the main bloom period for
most of the cattleyas,
so they're still wanting food.
They are they are still absorbing it,
so they still need that energy
to put out the flowers.
She asked me, when do you start
fertilizing orchids?
And there's an exception to this
rule too and I'll tell you about
that in just a second.
And we don't have any how many
were at GardenFEST again?
Everybody saw the orchids that
stood straight up and down and
had flowers all up and down the canes?
They're Dendrobium nobles.
That's an orchid that you do not
fertilize from October until
it's in bloom.
And that's usually about about
now they're all starting to bud
out and bloom on the Dendrobium Nobles.
Thales, I fertilize them all year round.
I never stop ever.
I don't ever stop on the cattleyas,
the Vandas, Dendrobiums.
I never stop fertilizing them.
I'm always fertilizing them.
Now, at home I I have a system
at home that my sprinkler system
has what's called a fertilizer injector,
so that every time that they get water,
that fertilizer injector is
injecting a concentrate into
that water stream,
and it mixes in and gets put on
my orchids all the time. Yes, ma'am?
I have a question about the bandage.
I I'm new to this and I just
bought one at one of the box
stores that where the roots were
hanging down, and that's how I
have it on my lanai.
And so I just spray with this bottle,
work with fertilizer,
the roots and the leaves?
Can I do I have to put it in a basket
like that? You don't what's it
in right now?
Is it just hanging from a wire or Yeah.
Yeah? Like that.
You can leave it like that.
Some people like to put it in
a basket because it's more
decorative looking.
All the basket does or a pot
with an with a banded orchid is
it holds the plant.
It doesn't do anything for it,
but it just holds it,
Just gives it a presentation.
And I've seen growers just grow them,
from just a wire with the roots
hanging down. That's it.
So you can you can do either or.
Yes, ma'am?
My question on the outside growth
when you put them on trees,
because I have a lot of oak tree.
Is it detrimental to the tree itself?
No. Orchids are epiphytic.
They're not parasitic.
So all the all they're what an orchid
is doing is once the roots attach
to the tree, they're just looking
for a foothold.
They just wanna hold on to something.
They're not actively taking
anything away from the trees.
They're not sucking any energy
or or food off of the tree.
I've got three of you.
I'm gonna start here,
and we'll work our way forward.
Yes, ma'am?
One? You can put an orchid on
just about any tree,
but I wouldn't try it on like a,
gumbo limbo. Anything with with
exfoliating bark,
because what will happen is
the roots will attach,
the bark will exfoliate,
and it'll fall off.
Now, if you're doing it on palm trees,
everybody knows cabbage palms.
Alright. You see the boots hanging
on the cabbage palms.
A lot of people like to take
their orchids and tuck them into
the boot. The problem with that
is once the orchid gets really big,
the boots fall off.
The orchid falls off.
So if you're going to put them on palms,
make sure that you clean the boots
off and attach it to the palm
tree itself directly.
You know, on some of the bigger
orchids like bigger oncidiums
and some of the brassias and
stuff that can get, like, really big.
They'll I had a lady come in one
time and bring me a big oncidium
that had been on a palm tree.
She put it up on the boots,
and the eventually,
the orchid got so big that it
just peeled the boots right off
the tree. She brought it in to me.
I had to divide it up and clean it up.
So what I recommend with palm
trees is just clean off the boots
and then attach it.
Now, you can attach it to palm trees,
oak trees, royal poincianas,
I mean just about anything that
you want to. Cedar trees also.
Any kind of pine tree, orchid bark.
Orchid bark is actually a type
of pine bark,
so they'll grow really well on
orchid or on pine bark too.
Just watch out for the sap on
the longleaf pines. It's just nasty.
Yes, ma'am.
From say like March on,
the roots are gonna attach really
quickly as long as you're watering
it on a regular basis.
It doesn't take long.
It takes usually about two to three,
four months and the roots will attach.
I usually leave,
what I'm using to attach it to
the tree on there for at least
six months to a year.
Once the orchid is fully attached
to the tree, I'll go back and
if I'm using tie tape, stretch tape,
I call it green stretch tape.
On palm trees I use this because
I can wrap it around the tree
and tie the orchid on.
Once the orchid is attached,
you can go back through and cut
this and then wet it down and
then go through and just thread
it out from underneath the roots.
It'll pull right out and leave
the roots intact without, you know,
pulling them back off the tree.
I use a lot of this and there
was somebody else here that had
a question. Yes, ma'am.
Oh, that's how what I was gonna
ask you is how do you get them
started on a tree?
I I tie them on,
front and back on the orchid.
The back goes down, the front goes up,
and I tie them on with green
stretch tape and I hold that
orchid on there so it doesn't wiggle.
If it wiggles, remember when a root
tip starting to grow,
if that root tip starts to grow
on and all of a sudden that root
tip starts to wiggle a little bit,
that tip dies, So it won't attach.
You've gotta have that new green
tip on the root to actually get
it to actually attach. Okay?
Any more questions? Yes.
If I have one plotted right now
in the house and it's blooming
and beautiful, do you recommend
doing doing that now or waiting
until it loses it? Is it a phalaenopsis?
You could do it now,
but keep it in the house while
it's blooming. Once it's done blooming,
put it outside.
Just remember, it does phalaenopsis
do not want full sun.
Make sure it has a canopy around
it or over it so it's shaded
during the day.
I had somebody over here first.
Yes, ma'am?
Are you talking about attaching
bandas to the tree?
Bandas, cattleyas, phales, dendrobiums,
just about any kind of orchid.
Remember, orchids are epiphytic,
or lipophitic.
Lithophitic, I think,
where they grow on rocks.
Typically in the wild, you know,
most orchids are growing on
trees or rocks or a stump.
We're the idiots that put them in pots.
By God, we do it because otherwise,
we wouldn't have them.
How many for the rock.
Why don't you do that on a rock?
Where all the detritus falls in
and it creates like a real rich humus,
down around them.
And you'll find all kinds of
cattleya species actually growing
in full sun on rock faces.
It's, you know,
you'd be surprised at how many
of them will actually take full sun.
So, you just remember you have
to ease them into it. Yes, ma'am.
What medium do you use for epidermoms?
Epidermoms, cattleyas,
any catalayabic or bark mix? Dendrils.
Oh, the radicones.
you're talking about something
totally different.
Busy bee does have,
epidermium bradychins,
the little orange terrestrial
ground orchids.
I grow them in the ground with,
a real thick layer of, cypress mulch.
I just mulch in real hard around them.
I use potting soil on the bottom,
but I put a real thick, you know,
bed of mulch in there. Okay.
How much sun?
Full sun on the epidermoms.
On the on the epis. Yes. Full sun.
I've got a client out on the island
that has two banks of them on
each side of the driveways.
You pull in the driveway that
are probably about three feet
wide by about eight feet to ten
feet long. They're beautiful
when they grow in like that.
If you're gonna put them out in
the landscape, if you're just
starting always remember that
that morning sun is not as strong
and as intense.
A lot of orchids can handle that
eastern morning sunlight.
Even some thales will handle
eastern morning sunlight,
but it's that middle of the day
to middle of afternoon,
western sun that will absolutely
fry an orchid here in Florida.
Okay?
It is it okay to let them sit
in the water or should you just
let it the water run right through
the water? Okay.
How many orchids do you have? Three.
Three? Alright.
She just asked a question,
and this is a really important question.
If do you mix up water and
fertilizer in a bucket and then
just put each one in there? No.
It just I generally,
put a put commitment because
they're small. Put them a dish
underneath them and,
pour the water Water water them
separately, each one? Okay. Yeah.
You can just water them separately
like that. How many of you have
done the the trick where you mix
up a bucket of orchid fertilizer,
stick the orchid down in it,
pull it out, put the next one in there,
and then put the next one in there.
Don't do that. Ever don't do that.
Here's here's the ring here's
the reason behind that is if
the if the first orchid that you
have that you mix up a batch of
water and fertilizer and you go
to put your first orchid in there,
if that orchid has a problem,
every orchid that you put in
that mix after that now has that
problem. You gave it cooties.
So, you know, when you fertilize
and water, I usually recommend,
you know,
just a pump up sprayer or a hose
end sprayer like something like
this that you can put the fertilizer
in and actually hook it to the hose
and just go through and spray them.
How many of you have a Miracle
Gro hose end sprayer at home?
I use that too.
My my number one,
My number one tool is a a little
pump up sprayer,
and I've got it back there because
the pump is pretty loud.
Is I have a pump up sprayer that
I go through. I mix up my fertilizer,
and I'll go through and just
water everybody real well,
and I don't wanna get any of
the electrical equipment wet.
So, can I get somebody to be,
What I usually do,
especially with VANDAS,
is I'll go through with them,
and I'll go through and I'll wet them?
And what you'll see,
I may get some of you in the front
row wet,
is I'll go through and I'll I'll
water the fertilizer or I'll
I'll fertilize the roots.
When you water an orchid or you
fertilize it, you know,
you can spray the foliage.
It doesn't the foliage doesn't
readily absorb most of the fertilizer
where the fertilizer is getting
taken up into the plant is through
the roots. Now with Vanda's once
you get them wet you can see
it's they're going from white to green.
That's what you want with a banda.
You want those roots to turn
nice nice and green when you water them.
That's exact I mean,
these these things turn green
right away, so that's perfect.
Okay. Yes? What about slow release?
You can use slow release.
When I'm repotting, typically,
I'll put a slow release on top
of the pot so that every time
they get watered,
they get a little bit of fertilizer
every time they get watered.
If you're if you're lazy and
you're not fertilizing you can
get a slow release dynamite do
not use Osmocote,
Osmocote will burn the roots on
an orchid.
Use dynamite, which is the silver
slow release pellet,
and put like a tablespoon per
six inch pot on each plant if
you're not fertilizing.
How many of you go away for the summer?
Alright. If you don't have
somebody taking care of your orchids,
who's feeding them?
On Vanda's or on all of them?
You can do that.
The slow release doesn't hurt anything.
You can actually apply it directly
to the top of the plant above the roots,
right around the base of the plant,
and it will you know,
as it gets watered each time,
we'll release a little bit of
fertilizer. If it's a Vanda,
you can make up a little nylon
stocking with about a tablespoon
of the slow release fertilizer
and a little satchel and just
hang it up on the plant above
the the roots. And every time
it gets wet or rained on,
it will release fertilizer down
to the roots. So that's a good
way to take care of them if you
go away for the summer.
For those of you that go away
for the summer, shame on you. Stay here.
It just turns into Hades during
June and July.
The last couple of years, June and July,
probably been hotter than August
and September. It's been unreal
the last couple of years. Let's see.
Does anybody else have any questions?
No. Like I said,
it doesn't matter what brand of
orchid fertilizer you're using
just as long as you're putting
fertilizer on them.
Water them and then spray them.
Water them first and then spray
them down with a fertilizer.
You can do that.
We're finding out there was
there was a gentleman that came
to talk to the Vero Beach Orchid
Society that we had a discussion
about when you're fertilizing orchids,
do you water them first so that
you actually get the roots,
primed so that they actually
start taking up nutrients?
There's a discussion going on
in the orchid world right now
whether or not that's necessary.
People used to tell you that if
you go through and the roots are
dry and you just put fertilizer on them,
you burn the roots.
That well, that doesn't happen
to orchids in the landscape or
out in the wild.
Nobody comes through and waters
them before they get fertilized.
So the discussion is is you
don't really need to do that.
Spray on the wood? I that's old school.
All the old time orchid growers
will tell you to do that.
Problem the problem with that is this,
is once the roots start to turn
green and they're saturated,
they've taken up everything
they're gonna take up.
So they're not gonna take up
anything more. So if you go
through and water it first,
it's already taken up what it's
gonna take up. It's not gonna
take up anymore, so it's gonna drop off.
So what I usually what we're
trying to figure out, and like I said,
I mean, you'll get five different
people who will tell you five
different things.
But this is something new that's
come up, and and if you look at
the Insiclia tempensis that
usually grows, it's a little
the little native butterfly
orchid that grows on the oak
trees everywhere here in this area.
Nobody goes through and fertilizes
them or waters them before they
get food. They just when they
get rained on, they get rained on.
That's it. And they take up
everything right when they first
get rained on.
So the the debate is still, I mean,
it's kinda funny right now,
but if you think about it logically,
I mean, it makes sense. It really does.
Another somebody else had a question.
I was wondering when somebody
was gonna say put ice cubes on
your orchids. How many of you do that?
Raise your hands nice and high.
Don't do that. Alright.
Say it's February,
and you've got a swimming pool
in the backyard.
That water is, what, fifty degrees?
Do you like it when you jump in
that water? Neither does the orchid.
You have to remember,
orchids are subtropical.
They don't like cold, typically.
Ice cubes,
that waters at freezing when it melts,
so it's right about what?
Thirty two to thirty eight degrees
when it's melting. Yeah. Don't do that.
If you're gonna water your orchids,
water them heavily,
water them thoroughly,
wait a couple of minutes,
go back and water them again and
then let them dry out a little
bit in between watering.
If you're putting ice cubes on them,
you're stunting the orchid and
slowing it down. Don't do that.
Yes, ma'am? What is your vessel
of choice for planting orchids?
I I know there's all the,
some people like the plastic,
some people likes the wood.
It depend well,
the vessel for growing an orchid
and which one do you prefer more?
Depends on where you're growing
them and what conditions you have.
If you're growing them outside and,
you know, they get rained on,
you want them to dry out as
quickly as possible in between watering,
especially if we're getting rain
every afternoon.
So you would wanna grow in a clay pot.
Now if your name is John Odom
down in Fort Pierce and you've
got twenty eight greenhouses and
you have to go through and repot
twenty eight greenhouses full
of orchids, you wanna go by cost.
Plastic pot is the cheapest
thing for him to use.
But he uses a different potting
material which is a small gray
stone called stalite.
He uses that because it's cost
effective and it doesn't rot or
break down so so he doesn't have
to repot as often. I hate stalite rock.
I just I can't stand it.
It's just awful to use when you
go to divide and, you know,
clean up an orchid.
It tears up your clippers.
I just I can't stand it, but, you know,
he loves it. So like I said,
if you go to five different people,
you're gonna get five different things.
If I'm growing outside in the landscape,
I try to get everything out of
a plastic pot if I can and I put
everything in my house in clay pots.
Okay? Yes, ma'am.
How many orchids do you have?
Over four hundred.
I haven't counted recently because
I keep buying.
Right now, I've probably got
about five five or six in the house
right now. So not including
the stuff I bought at Garden Fest,
which actually come to think of
it is mostly regular plants.
It's no orchids from Garden Fest.
So yes, ma'am? Can you re explain
the orientation if you are growing,
attaching an orchid to the tree.
You talked about, the pseudobulbs,
the front and the back of the plant.
And then I thought I heard you
say that the back of the plant
is orientated to down or the ground
in the front. So, actually,
you're putting your plant instead
of Let's let's use this oak tree
as an example. If you turn around
and look at these branches, alright,
what you wanna do is when you're
growing an orchid,
you want to consider rain,
because you want it to be able
to get watered,
you want to consider how it's
going to grow, and then you want
to to be able to figure out how
you're going to attach it to the tree.
Now, if you look at, say,
this front branch that this
gentleman is leaning up against,
kinda arches up and out.
You don't wanna put the orchid
on the underside because when it rains,
it's never going to get water on it.
When it rains, the water is
going to channel down the grooves
in that bark and come down the side
of the tree. So you wanna put
it on the side to the top of the branch,
never underneath.
And I've seen people when they
go to mount them,
they'll put them on the underside
because it's the most visible
and that's where it looks pretty.
Well, typically, nine times out of ten,
that orchid will die because
it's not getting watered.
I recommend that you put them
on the top side or on the side
where actually rain gets on them
and they the rain will actually
drizzle down the tree trunk and
get to the roots on that plant.
Now eventually,
as that orchid gets bigger and
bigger and it's all one plant,
it will start to cover on on
the underside of that that tree also.
So but you have to let it do it
on its own. Don't do it when you
start out.
Now, when you're attaching,
put them to the east side so
they get some morning sunlight.
Try to orientate towards the east
so they get early morning sunlight
or late on the on the western
side so that they get light on
the late afternoon.
Anything after four o'clock
during the summer.
If it's anywhere between, like,
eleven and four during the summer,
you're gonna cook your orchid.
So make sure it gets dappled light.
Yes, sir?
Attach it on the underside or,
a piece of wood just popping up
above the flame that's gonna rot away.
Two problems. I put some underneath,
and some I put on pieces of wood
that I propped up about the plant.
And I wanna move them.
They got nice roots all growing
in and everything.
How do you can you do that? Yeah.
You can move them around.
If it's not blooming and doing
what you want, move it around
till it's getting better light.
Yeah. So just do the cut number.
Well, you don't have to necessarily
is it attached to something?
Well, if if if it's on a piece of,
like, driftwood or something and
it's just up on a wall and all
of a sudden it's attached to
the wall too, or is it just
attached to the wood?
It propped up fill,
and I'll use a bigger pine board,
and it's not doing well.
I would move it.
If you want to,
you can remove it from the board.
You can put it on something else
without a problem. Yes, ma'am.
If it's big enough, yes.
You can take a division off of it,
and you can put it on something
else too. Copy the wood?
Four pseudobulbs. Okay.
If you're gonna divide your
orchid when you're dividing,
make sure that you do the division
where you have at least four
pseudobulbs on each part of
the plant so that it's strong
enough to keep going.
What what what used to happen
back in the early nineteen
hundreds when orchids were really
expensive like, you know, that luteum,
Indiana, what would happen was
the growers would take one of
the old back bulbs and they
would sell it to somebody.
And, you would have to take that
one back bulb and hope to God
that the eye would would swell
and grow and the plant would
continue to grow.
That's how they got new orchids
back then.
Now we've gotten into cloning
and you know, propagating and breeding.
So, unfortunately,
back in the day that used to be
one of the only ways that you
could get an orchid.
Now, I did bring something here
from home from from my stuff.
Everybody wants to know what
orchids look like when they're
being propagated.
Orchids are grown from a seed pod.
How many of you know that vanilla
is an orchid? Yes.
Vanilla is an orchid and the the
actual vanilla pod is it's an actual
seed pod for the vanilla vine.
The seed is actually put into
flasks with an agar in the bottom
of it and there are different
formulas for different types of orchids.
This has a lot you can see the black
that black is residual charcoal.
And I'll let you pass that around.
Do me a favor. Don't shake it up.
Don't drop it.
Those seedlings have been in
there now for three years.
And they're just the agarose
just about gone,
so they're about ready to come
out of that flask.
And I'll probably take them out
and put them in one pot what we
call a compot.
So you'll see that some of the plants
are a little bit larger than
some of the others.
They all started at the same time.
The ones that are bigger are
your stronger, probably more
prolific of the seedlings.
Now, if that was across,
each one of those plants,
each when they bloom,
each flower would be a little
bit different.
So, if it was a clone,
each flower would be the same.
Most of these guys,
these are all clones.
So each flower if if that plant
has a name on it,
each flower is gonna look like that.
That. I when I started when I
started putting plants in a landscape
for people, I was using a little
bit of sphagnum moss.
I would take the orchid out of
the pots or the basket or whatever
they were growing in,
clean everything off the roots,
and I would put the the plant
onto the tree. And then I would
take a little bit of sphagnum
moss and cover the roots.
The problem with that is I found
that that fern comes out of that
sphagnum moss. So I've stopped
using sphagnum moss.
Now you can use, like,
the fiber off of a coconut tree.
It won't it won't grow that fern
as as readily.
It's still gonna grow in that,
but what I've done is I've gone
to just bare rooting them onto the tree,
tying them on, and just making
sure that they're getting watered
on a regular basis.
With the fork in the orchid trees,
would it be a bad idea to stick
it where the fork is or it would
easily push them in the Actually,
if you're gonna put them up in
the tree you could start at like
the base of the fork and hopefully
if the plant gets big enough
it'll go up both both branches.
So yes, you can start at the fork.
The big one out there by JC Park
started down at the side of the tree,
and it has actually gone up
the two forks of the oak tree.
So it's actually spread up both
forks of the oak tree.
I mean, that thing is is absolutely
incredible. I'm gonna wrap it
up because I've been talking to
you for two hours now.
I hope you guys have learned something.
Now I'm gonna do a shameless thank you.
I'm gonna do a shameless plug.
Vero Beach has a wonderful orchid
society. I moved into this area
in two thousand and six.
I joined the Bureau Beach Orchid
Society and for some reason I've
been corralled into being, you know,
a board member and, you know,
a participant where I help out
at shows and stuff like that.
When I moved here from Orlando,
I started out with probably
about twenty five orchids.
My collection's now well over
four hundred. So you can see
since two thousand and six, it's gone,
you know, really, really bonkers.
I bought my first orchid in
nineteen ninety six.
Most of you that think, you know,
I've got a question,
but it's too stupid to ask. No.
It's not. We all started at
the same place you did.
So if you've got a question,
don't be shy. Somebody else is
gonna learn from that question also.
Now let me ask a simple question.
How many of you still have the original
orchid that you bought?
The first orchid you ever bought.
That's that's pretty good.
You don't usually hear that.
Now, the first orchid I ever
bought was from Tom Ritter and
I'll tell you a funny story.
Tom Ritter up in Orlando and his
wife Evelyn had an orchid nursery
down off of Orange Avenue just
south of downtown Orlando.
I used to go there with a friend.
We'd walk in. She'd look around
and look at orchids, and I'd, you know,
go with her and hang out.
Well, I bought my first orchid
from them. I walked in the front
greenhouse, and Evelyn had this
bandaceous orchid, Vanda type orchid,
but it was a different type of of vanda,
had really big leaves,
and it's usually always in bloom
for Valentine's Day.
This year, it's it's way behind.
The cold weather's just kinda
slowed it down.
But I I looked at it and looked
at Evelyn. I said, Evelyn, do you,
you know, do you have one of
those for sale? No. Okay. Alright.
Do you know where I can get one?
No. Okay.
Well, if you ever divide it,
I'd like to have a piece of it.
I'm never gonna divide it.
At this point, I'm going, okay.
I guess I'm never gonna get that.
Can I get the name of it?
So maybe I can find it somewhere else.
So I got the name of it.
Unfortunately, Evelyn was across
the street at their house mowing
the lawn one day,
and Evelyn had a heart attack
and passed away.
Evelyn's not with Tom anymore.
We actually just lost Tom about
six months ago.
Tom was, I think, ninety seven.
Still growing orchids at ninety seven.
I went into the orchid nursery
one day and I found out that
Evelyn had passed.
I was really, you know, sad.
And I asked Tom.
I said, Tom, what happened to
that big orchid? We chopped it up.
I said, what? I said, where is it?
He goes, why? I said,
I wanted a piece of it.
He goes, really? I said, yeah.
I paid a hundred and fifty dollars
for that thing,
but I still have that orchid.
Now because Evelyn was dead set
against dividing that poor thing
or selling a piece of it,
guess what I named it? Yep.
So every year during Valentine's Day,
I'd say hello to Evelyn.
And, you know,
I I saw Tom a couple of years ago.
Tom wasn't going to the shows
and Ritter Orchids does come to
the Vero Beach Orchid Society
and they they sell out of the show.
And I told Evelyn I had it or,
his current wife,
I told her Linda that I had that orchid,
and she just kinda smiled at me.
I'm not sure, you know,
that that was the right thing to say,
but, you know, it's it's a neat orchid,
and I'm glad I've got it.
It's it's another one of those
legacy things. But the story
behind it with Evelyn not wanting
to do a thing that was a first
after Evelyn died,
that was a first orchid Tom went
in the greenhouse and chopped up.
He went in, divided it up,
and sold off all of it.
Tom was the grower.
He was the one growing them to
sell them. She was the one growing
them to collect them.
So that's a fun fun story.
I've had a couple of experiences
like that. The Vero Beach Orchid
Society, I wanna do a plug.
The Vero Beach Orchid Society
meets every third Thursday at
the Indian River Garden Club.
We meet at seven o'clock at night.
I'm the gentleman with the club
that is bringing the speakers in.
This year or this month,
I've got Paul Storm slated to
come in who is an orchid grower
out of Sarasota who grows
shamburgia and shamburgia catalaea
hybrids. We call them shambo cats.
They're ex they're they're really
well suited to do well out in
the landscape here.
The last time Paul came in,
he just about sold everything out.
The orchid society members just
went nuts over his plants.
His talk is called Shambo Love,
and it's actually about him
doing the different crosses
between the shimberchias and
the regular cattleyas.
Problem with shimberchias is
the flower spikes get really tall.
The cattleyas, the flower spikes
stay relatively short,
so you bring that height back
down on the shuberchia,
but you impede the rough rugged
characteristics from the Schomburgia.
Schomburgias are a South American
and Caribbean island orchid.
They're used to our climate, our heat,
our sun. When you cross them
back and forth,
you get an orchid that'll bloom
in our landscape and just go nuts.
So, it's a really good orchid.
Now, somebody brought me a picture
of a Dendrobium noble.
Dendrobium nobles,
you saw those at the show.
They grow,
canes up about like this and get
flowers all the way up the cane.
Problem with those is everybody
was growing them.
The the issue with them is they
couldn't get them to rebloom
really well. The gentleman I've
got that's coming in March is
going to talk about how to grow those.
This month I'm bringing in a bunch
of those plants in two and a half
inch pots, little seedlings for
the Orchid Society members.
Each Orchid Society member will
be able to buy a plant.
Each one will have to grow it out.
We'll have a contest to see who
grew it better.
The deal with those dendrobiums
is in I'm trying to push them
because once you know how to grow them,
they'll grow really well,
and do fantastic,
especially in our climate.
The thing with that dendrobium
is when you when you grow it,
you want and this is one of
those exceptions,
that I will tell you how to grow
an orchid,
and the reason being is it helps
it to bloom more.
I've grown tried growing them
before and I've only gotten maybe eight,
nine flowers on a a plant now.
The ones I now have at the house
in the greenhouse have forty, fifty,
sixty flowers on them.
So there's there's a trick to them.
The problem with the Dendrobium Nobles,
and there are different classes
of orchids that like a winter rest.
They don't want food in the winter.
So about October,
there's a bunch of orchids that
I pull that I don't fertilize,
and what that does is it gives
them a rest period and gives
them the energy that in the spring
they'll bloom. If you fertilize
them before they develop the flower
spikes, that flower spike will
turn into a kiki and not flower buds.
So they're they're tricky but
you just have to know when to feed them.
Now I hope that we will see some
of you at the Vero Beach Orchid Society.
It's on the twenty first or
twenty second, I think, this month.
Twenty first. Is it the twenty first?
So, that's seven o'clock at the,
Indian River Garden Club across
from the county administration building.
We have that every month.
The month of May,
we will not have a meeting in
the clubhouse. We'll have our
annual picnic out by Riverside Park,
in that little park that runs
along beside the bridge.
I've got some really neat speakers
lined up, and it should be pretty
entertaining and and, you know,
should be pretty educational also.
I wanted to talk to you guys
real quick and I brought an example.
I've gotten into a new type of orchid.
Pick up one of those pencil cactus.
Oh, okay. Let me grab this one.
Everybody knows what a pencil cactus is.
Grows like a weed. Yeah.
Especially in Florida.
Grows in full sun.
Here's an orchid that does the same
thing. These are called terite vandas.
They're actually in the same
family as these guys.
They will grow in full sun.
I bought this at the Miami show.
This is a different flower I've
never seen.
I've probably now got about I
would say twenty two different
flower varieties of this type of orchid.
They're they're out there.
The popular one is called Miss Joaquin.
It's a light pink to lavender flower.
This one's a little bit different.
It's it's a funky looking flower,
but, if you grow these in the ground,
put mulch around the bark of
them and they will put them up
next to a palm tree or something
and just watch them go.
They're incredible.
They're neat little plants and
they grow in full sun.
Long skinny leaf, full sun.
What's the name again?
It's a terret,
t r e t t e r e t,
Vanda. Terete. Terete. Terete.
Vanda, and they're hard to find
at the orchid shows.
Not a lot of growers carry them.
So where do you get them?
You have to go to the big orchid
orchid shows.
A lot of the Hawaiian growers
will carry them.
There's a couple of them at some
of the bigger shows that will
carry these guys,
and you have to you have to
seriously hunt for them.
I've spent probably about eight
years hunting for the different
color varieties on flowers.
Now, let's have a little fun.
I wanna thank you guys for coming out,
and I hope you learned something.
If you have any questions,
if you have any questions,
Danny here at the nursery is
getting pretty good with orchids.
You can ask him or just come see
us at the Orchid Society.