Orchid Seminar - November 16, 2019

Hi everybody. My name is Paul Price. Welcome to Orca Class 2.0. How many of you were here last year when I did the class? How many of you went to see that big orchid out on the island that I told you about? Really? No wonder he hasn't killed me. If nobody knows about it, there's a huge orchid out on the barrier island that's been on the trees out there for over 50 years. It is as big as my SUV. It blooms in May. The flower spikes are about 10 to 12 feet long and it's in the center of an oak tree like this. It started at the crotch and it's going up both sides of the tree. Yes, ma'am. So you have seen it. It's when you go out the barrier island, go out across the barber bridge, go to A1A, make a left, go north, look for Fiddlewood, the F road. Take a right. It's on a little blue house with an oak tree out in the front yard. The driveway has two concrete paths going up to a carport in the backyard and that oak tree is right out in front in the front yard. You won't see it in bloom till May, but go see it.

I'm here to teach you guys a little bit about orchids. I brought a couple of examples in. I don't have a lot of stuff in bloom at home right now. We're kind of at the beginning of the bloom season for most of your orchids. There are some stuff that bloom this time of year, but your majority of orchids bloom from like January through May. That's going to be your peak bloom time for most orchids. What I'm going to try and teach you today is how to take care of them and how to repot them, how to fertilize them, how to treat them for insects, and how to treat them for fungus. We're running into the cooler, shorter days of the year and it gets a little bit wetter when the cold fronts come through. They stay damp, they stay cold. This is a prime opportunity time for these orchids to get fungus and I'll teach you a couple of ways to circumvent that so you can actually prevent it.

How many of you know that there's an orchid society here in town? How many of you have been? Okay, I have flyers here for every one of you. Come and visit. We'll gladly welcome you into it and harass you till you join. And we're always looking for good volunteers. So what I want to teach you guys about is how to identify the different orchids, how to repot them, what to repot them in, how to fertilize them, and then what to do. How to fertilize them and then once they get growing, how to treat them for insect problems and for fungus problems. I have a couple of different varieties of orchids here that I brought out from the shop here that are for sale. A couple of the other things are not for sale so don't touch. I'll hurt you. I brought in some of my own stuff just to show you guys some differences that you don't normally see.

I'm going to show you the different things that Busybee has for sale here for you that you can actually buy that are actually really easy to grow pretty, pretty foolproof as long as you don't overwater them. I brought out one of the Cadillayas. Everybody knows what the Cadillayas are. They're considered the queen of orchids. These are what they used to use as corsage orchids in the old days. I think there's beginning to be a push back for florists to use them again as corsages so we'll see if that happens. Everybody knows what a phthalonopsis is. You know why it's called a phthalonopsis? Most people call them fails. Any idea real quick? Because they kill them, they fail. This orchid is probably one of the easiest orchids you can grow. Dappled light, it'll live in your house on a table without any problems. The only thing is it will not bloom inside your house. It has to get the cooler night temperatures that we're getting this time of year. If you've got these right now, you've got them inside and you haven't been able to get them to bloom, stick them outside at night as long as the temperature is not going below 50. That cooler temperature every evening will get them to initiate their flower spike. That's how you get these things to bloom. Now the growers are putting them in greenhouses and they're rotating the crops out and they'll put them in one section, close up the sides and turn an air conditioner on every night. They drop the temperature, get some to force them to bloom.

How many of you know that the highest selling plant in the world used to be the poinsettia? It is now the phthalonopsis orchid. The phthalonopsis orchid, typically most people consider them throwaways. Don't throw them away. If it's done blooming, you can take it out of the pot and put it on a tree out in your landscape. It'll do just fine. How many know what this is? Onsidium? What's the other name for it? Dancing lady, right. These are very easy to grow also and after they get to be a big specimen plant, they'll put up a cloud of yellow flowers. There are several different species that will get massive on these things. One is called special autumn. You can get those at the different shows but they get absolutely huge and the flower spikes, it's like a cloud of yellow. Vandas, how many grow vandas? Okay, vandas are a little bit trickier. How many of you know they don't like cold? They do not like cold weather. They do not like temperatures under 50 degrees. If the temperature goes below 50 degrees, the bottom leaves will turn brown and fall off and this is typically what you will see happen. The leaves will turn like that and then they'll yellow and fall off the plant. I have probably about 150 of them at home and it's a fight every winter when the cold weather comes in because the greenhouse gets closed up and I have to turn heaters on to try and keep that temperature above 50 degrees, especially on the really cold nights. It's a fight but these are probably my favorite orchids. They're wonderful plants. They're Beirut. There's a difference between vandas and the other orchids that are potted in plants.

These guys don't have a way to store food and water so they need more food and water on a regular basis. If you're not prepared to water them every day and you're not prepared to bring them in when it gets cold, stay away from them a little bit. There are other types of vandas or what we would call vandacious orchids. I brought in another example. This is what they call a Tirit vanda. This grows in full sun. All day long, full sun, Florida sun grows like a weed and there are actually two different types in this pot. There's this one which is the name clonal name on it is Amy and this is an unnamed variety that I've never seen before. I collect these. I've probably got about 30 different types of this flower. Very hard to find. They used to be really popular then they fell out of favor and they've come back into favor now and a lot of growers are starting to collect them again and sell them again. There are some really neat flowers on these if you can find them. Tirit vandas, T-E-R-E-T.

Now there are a couple of dendrobiums on the back entrance table when you come in when you registered. I brought out a couple of other dendrobiums because this is the time of year when these guys start to look like they are dying. These orchids are both in the dendrobium family. What happens with the weather with these guys is when it gets cooler and we get less sunlight the leaves start to turn yellow and the leaves actually fall off. The plant actually drops all the leaves. Then in the spring where the nodes are at each leaf they'll set a flower bud. This one, when it's in bloom, smells like raspberries for about 20 feet around it. It is absolutely amazing.

How many of you know about the Vero Bee Torquette Show in April? Garden Fest and usually at the Vero Bee Torquette Show you can find these for sale. So wonderful plants... they look like hell when they've dropped all the leaves, but what they do is absolutely amazing. Now most of you are going to think when you see that the leaves are all yellowing. Oh, I'm killing it. I'm doing something wrong. No, you're not. They're actually meant to do that. That's what they do in the wild. In Thailand where they grow, they grow on teak or it's either teak or mahogany. I can't remember, but the trees drop all their leaves and they get put out in full sun. They get no rain during the winter, so they drop everything to reserve their water. And then in the spring, just before the rains start, the buds come out and then once the buds come out, the rains start again and they start growing their new growth. When the canes go bare, you don't cut them off. You leave them on because they will bloom for you each year. Same with these. These are little dendrobium nobles. They're becoming more and more popular. A lot of people didn't grow these because they could never get them to rebloom correctly. I love them. When they bloom, they've got blooms all the way up the cane and they put off a massive amount of flowers. They're actually very pretty.

The problem with these is they like a lot of light. They will take full sun. If you condition them. Now, if you take this plant now and stick it out in full sun, excuse me, you may sunburn the leaves, but that's okay because the leaves are going to turn yellow and fall off anyways. So in the spring, when it comes time for blooming, it'll set the buds on each of the nodes and go nuts. I've got a lady out on the island that started growing these and she was growing them in a little clay pot, watering them once a week, growing them in bark and she could never get them to get more than three or four flowers on them. I said, you're growing them wrong. And we took them out, repotted them into sphagnum moss in a basket. They get watered every day and they're in full sun. Last year, she had 300 flowers on one of them. What is right? Amazing little plants. A plant like this at a show, usually about $30. But the color varieties is absolutely amazing. They come in just about every color combination that you can think of and they're beautiful. They're called dendrobium nobles. So they're becoming more and more popular and Tom with spring water will more and likely have some for sale when he comes to the orchid society. And he may consider this one of those orchid oddities, but that's because people aren't familiar with them.

Now, my tastes of orchids have evolved over the years. I started out with Vandus. I got into Shemberkias. I've always loved Shemberkia. But the problem with the Shemberkias is they get massive and they take up so much room. My tastes have started to evolve where I'm going to plant with smaller flowers, with a higher spike, with a cluster of flowers at the top. They don't take up as much room. And there's actually some breeding going on with them where they're actually really, really, really neat. These are Brugtonia crosses that are actually out of the islands. So they're actually suited for our climate perfectly.

Now, I told you guys last weekend I went shopping. This was one of my takes. I've been searching for this thing for about six years. The last couple of times I bought it, it was only bear-suitable bulbs with no leaves, tried to get it to grow and each one of them died. So I finally got one with leaves and we'll see if I can keep it alive this time. I've bought probably about six of them already. So I'll keep trying. Therefore, you should keep trying. If I can kill it, you can kill it. Now, I brought something in that you normally don't get to see. And I wanted to try and teach you guys why orchids cost what they do. I'm going to do something and I hope you don't mind. I'm going to take one of your seed pods if that's okay. Well, no, we won't. We'll just hold it up because I'm not going to snap it off. All right. Everybody has orchids at home. The bees or butterflies or something will come through and pollinate them. These two capsules are what you would call an orchid seed pod. The seed pods grow for about nine months. These seed pods will swell up to be about like that.

In each seed pod, you can get up to 10,000 flower seeds. Those seeds are pretty much like dust. It's not a little seed capsule that you can actually stick in a bucket of dirt and grow. So if you're buying it off of eBay, you're buying something else and not an orchid seed. Now, the way these guys are propagated is that seed is spread in flasks on an agar. And each one of these, you can see them. You can see a little bit of the agar in the bottom, but there's all kinds of nutrients in this. And they're put in these flasks under sterile conditions. Once the seed comes in here, they're in here for about two years. Now, from two years from here, they will go up to a small two-inch pot or a plug tray, and they'll be in this for about another year and a half. Then, hopefully, they start getting a little bit bigger and you can start moving them up to the four-inch pots. This still probably is not blooming size. I've got probably another year before I can maybe hope for a bloom. So I wanted to bring that in to show you guys. And then once the class is over, I'll let you come up and look at them and I'll talk to you guys about them, and that way we can give you a little more imprint. This plant... I'm going to say probably from a division grown out like this, probably about six or seven years. It was a gift to you guys. This is probably about six or seven years old in the pot. This is a Cadillia beringiana. They get massive. I mean, this is nothing. I mean, literally, I mean, massive, and can be a nightmare to divide. Well, it's at the size where it's not a nightmare. When they get really big, they're a nightmare to divide.

All right, we have that, but I've got a couple other things that I'm going to teach you guys how to repot. We'll use you guys with your plant. And I'll use a couple of the phthalenopsis to teach you guys how to repot phals. How many of you grow your phthalenopsis outside? Okay, how many of you are just growing them inside? Okay, one or two. When you grow phals outside, because they don't have that suitable, they can't store food and water. You have to keep them watered evenly. The problem with phthalenopsis in the landscape is if you keep them in moss outside, once we get in the winter where we get that rainstorm and that moss stays too wet, you can rot the roots off of them. What happens with the phal when the roots rot is leaves start to droop. The leaves will start to droop like this. I mean, they'll really just droop down and they don't have any meat on the leaf. They get really thin and they just start to just droop. That's when you'll be able to tell that the plant has issues with the root system.

Now, sometimes once they get going, they'll grow to a point and they'll grow up and then you'll start getting the aerial roots. And they'll water themselves off of that. Spagnum moss in Florida because of the humidity and the wet weather we get, spagnum moss tends to go bad within a year. These need to be repotted every year. Okay, repotting these. How many of you have repotted one? Raise your hand. I'm pretty good. How many of you have been scared to try to repot one? I'm looking for victims. Hold your hands up. You. It's not as difficult as everybody seems to make it out to be. It's actually very simple.

All right. Now, when you repot phals, you want to grow them in spagnum moss. There are different grades of this. You want to get the stuff that is fairly clean, not a lot of sticks or dust in it. The better grow orchid moss is one of the better mosses out there. The other moss that you could probably find would be Chilean long fiber spagnum moss. It's the best, but it's also very hard to find. Usually orchid suppliers at the shows will carry it. It really does. It holds up so much better in Florida and our humidity and heat, but the stuff from better grow is actually very good. I use this on my seedlings when I take them out of the flask and put them in plug trays. So when you take this, it comes in dry and compressed. You need to take it and put it in the bucket with some water in it. And we're going to do about half of this right now. And it just goes in the bucket with the water. You put it down in the water, let it soak up the water for a couple of seconds, see it breaks up fairly quickly, and it gets wet pretty fast. I mean, it takes nothing to get this thing ready. I mean, it holds that much water. That's how fast it soaks up that water. Now, what you do is once you get it wet, you pull it out of the bucket, you wring the water out a little bit, and then we're ready for repotting.

Now, I'm not going to let you do this. Okay, that's good. I put the whole place on fire. I've done that before. It's fun. It's fun when you're repotting with somebody, and you know, they get a little cocky about it. When you heat up your torches, you're doing a couple of different things. One, you're sterilizing them. Orchids, just like people, can catch a virus. They can catch fungus, and they can catch different diseases from dirty tools. Now, when I get somebody that's a little smart with me, I hand them the tips like this. I used to work in an operating room. You never take anything by the tip. You're smart. I like you.

Okay, when you're repotting these guys, it's not rocket science. It's very easy. You take it out of the pot. We can actually reuse this pot because this orchid is going back in this pot. Now, if you're going to repot and you're repotting to a new pot, make sure that pot is clean and didn't have another orchid in it beforehand. If you're reusing clay pots, they need to be soaked in bleach for 24 hours, then soaked in water, and then let all the moisture evaporate out of the pots. I go a step further. I put them in the oven at 400 degrees for four hours. After four hours, I turn the oven off, leave the door closed, and let it cool down naturally. If you open it up and take the pots out, they will explode. If you leave the door closed, just like another kiln, it lets them cool down naturally so you can do that.

Now, what we're going to do is we're going to take all the old moss off of this. We're going to look at the roots that are inside the moss. We're going to assess them, and then we're going to decide what needs to be cleaned off, and then we're going to repot it. All right, because I've sterilized these, I can use this to trim the roots. If you don't want to go that route, you can use single-edge razor blades. Only use one per plant. Once you're done with it, throw it out. I just take an old jar, put a slit in the top, and all the old razor blades go in this jar. When it's full, it goes in the trash. That way, nobody gets cut, and it can go to the landfill safely.

If you're using these, please be careful. I have slit my thumb from the top to the bottom doing an orchid before, and let me tell you, it doesn't feel good. I only recommend these if you're really comfortable with using them. If you're just an average orchid grower, get a small pair of shears, use these and sterilize them in between your plants. Always sterilize in between each plant. Yes? No, alcohol will not kill all the viruses. I use a torch every time. Now, what I'm going to get you to do is take this and start breaking it apart and flaking that moss off of it. The moss can go on the ground.

Do I have to be careful with the root? No, you can pretty much peel it off because I'm seeing what I was expecting. So, yeah, just take it and throw it on the ground. It looks like it's very soggy. Yeah, it's wet. Yes, you can. If you're going to grow them outside, if you're going to grow them outside where they get rained on, I would suggest growing them in bark. If you're going to grow them where they don't get rained on, put them in moss. Remember, this doesn't have a pseudobulb like the other orchids. The pseudobulb is this part of the orchid. It's like an onion. It stores food and water for the plant. So, when it goes through a dry period, it can handle it and not get stressed out.

How are we doing? I think I'm doing okay. You're doing really good. Just getting in there and working off the... Yeah, that's exactly what I was expecting too. Okay. So, you take all of this out? Take all of that moss out. You want to... when you're repotting these guys, you want to get rid of all that old moss because typically what happens is it sours. Once it sours, the roots all rot off. You don't have any roots on the plant. I can guarantee you the stuff that's keeping this plant going are the aerial roots right now.

I think that's pretty good, huh? Yeah, that's pretty good. Now, let me show them something. Now, this is what I was expecting. You know, a healthy root... a healthy root is going to look like this. It's going to have meat on the bones. You can put your fingers on it, squeeze it. It's pretty firm. The old roots are soft and mushy. That means that root has died. And actually, what you're looking at right here is not the root. The root is this fine wire inside all of that. What this stuff is on the outside of the root is what we call vellum, and it acts as a way for the orchid to retain water. Once it starts to get wet, kind of like a wick, once it starts to get wet, the pores on it will open up and then the plant will actually start taking water into it. The problem with a lot of plants that are potted in sphagnum moss is if they're kept too wet, they'll rot the roots out. And I can tell you pretty much most of the roots on this are all rotted off.

So, what you want to do is, with this, is go back through anything that's got that flat root. Just go back through and cut it off. Now, anything like this, see this still has meat on the bone? See how it's still firm? You can cut that off, but leave that because that's still good. If they're still green, I leave them on because they will still photosynthesize, they'll help to feed the plant. Once you repot an orchid and you have to cut all those bad roots off, you don't want to water it as often. Let the plant start to develop some root growth, and there are a couple of things that you can use that will help encourage root growth also.

Don't be afraid to cut the spindle thing? No. Yes. Any orchid that you've got the number one killer for them is too much water. So, when you water, they like a lot of water all at once, but they like to drain out and dry back out. The roots do not like to be moist constantly. That's why they rot out. Orchids typically are epiphytic. That means they're growing on something, either rocks, trees, palm trees, you name it, they'll grow on it. In South America, there are orchids that grow in rock outcroppings out in full sun, and the roots spread out in a little crevice where all the natural debris and detritus kind of settles in, and they'll just do great like that.

Now, with that being said, we're the idiots that put them in a pot, so they're not used to growing like that, so you have to kind of try and let them dry out in between watering. She asked a good question: what about the germs on your hands? Because, I mean, let's be honest, humans are not exactly the cleanest species on the planet. Yeah, you're still going to have germs on your hands. Some people are actually going to using the nitrite gloves or the latex gloves. A lot of people still are not yet, unless you've got something really, really valuable in your collection. I don't think I would go to that extreme, but a lot of commercial growers now are using gloves when they repot.

Something like this, it's mushy here, but the rest of it looks kind of okay. No, it's still good. That's still good. See how there's no meat on that? Yeah, trim that off. All you have to do is, if you feel it, and it's flat and mushy... Now, this one back here, it's flat and mushy up here, but you've still got good roots here, so I would leave that. Now, I would take this old flower spike and cut it off.

Let me borrow this real quick. Okay. When you repot these guys, and typically, I'm not going to tell you to repot until it's done flowering. Once it's done flowering, what do you want to do? You want to grow the... Once it's done flowering and you repot, what's the main goal you're looking for right off the bat? Trying to grow the orchid out so it gets bigger. When you grow it out bigger, you're going to get a bigger flower spike, you're going to get bigger flowers and more flowers. Now, once you do this to an orchid, this flower spike is going to take nutrients away from the plant. I recommend that you take it off, let the plant rest, let it grow a little bit, let it rebuild itself, make itself stronger, and then let it re-bloom naturally on its own. I usually just cut it back right back here, but let me do something.

How many of you have these once they're done blooming? And you've got this green spike and you're not sure what to do about it, but somebody said that you can cut it off at a certain point and maybe get another flower spike on it. Yeah? You can get these to put off a secondary flower spike. If you'll count back on the rings that come up on the flower spike, count back usually two to three. I usually go up to the third and then cut it off just above that third ring. You know, that's if I don't repot it. I'll cut it back off there, set it out where it gets the cooler night temperatures, that'll get it to initiate a second flower spike. All right? Because this is being repotted, we've trimmed a lot of the roots off. You want to save the plant and grow it out stronger. So I recommend that you take these off. So take it off the other place.

Yep. All right. That's, it's that simple. Okay. Now, let me show you a little bit more. When you go to, you did pretty good. Some of these wire roots I would take off. Okay. And then I usually like to trim them so they're about four inches. And if I've got a root with just a wire sticking out of it, I'll trim it and clean it off. All right? Now, she's trimmed it all up. She's cleaned all the old roots off the roots that are still good, still have meat on the bones. So she's trimmed those off so they're nice and healthy. These will send out a root off the side. They'll grow a new root. So this is actually ready for repotting.

Now, every time that you repot an orchid and you start putting cuts on it when you cut the roots, what do you do? A fresh cut is a prime opportunity for bacteria, viruses, anything to get into it, just like a human's wound. So what I like to do, this is an old school trick, is just regular cinnamon. Cinnamon is actually a bark. And what it will do is it will seal those wounds so that, and it's also anti-fungal, so it will help deter those issues with the plant. No, we're not making apple pie. It makes your orchid smell good. And then you get it all over you. Yeah, don't touch your eyes. So once you've done that, the orchid is now ready to repot.

Now, the way the roots grow on this orchid is they grow out like a spider does. The plant grows here and the roots come out like a spider. When you repot these guys, you want to take a ball of this sphagnum moss just like this, put it around the main base of the roots that are here, and I'm going to show you, and then I'm going to take it apart and let you do it. That's the way you teach. Okay, you take that ball, you put it around the main stem and the roots that are in there, and then you can wrap these aerial roots and then add some more moss to it, and then back down in the pot. Typically, you want a new clean pot, but you can reuse the old pot.

A lot of people are going to plastic ones because they're cheaper. They're lighter in weight and they don't cost as much. Most of your commercial orchid growers now are growing in plastic. A lot of hobbyists tend to grow in the old clay orchid pots. If anybody has any of these old bulb pan orchid pots like this, hold on to them. They are a treasure. You cannot buy them anymore.

Okay, I think that's pretty good. He's all covered. Yes. Okay. Put it down in the pot. How heavy do you press? You don't want to press it down. You don't want to compact it. You want that moss to be a little airy so that it has air spaces in there. You did perfect. I mean, the only thing I do is just tuck the moss in there, but she's repotted her first phalaenopsis. Look, we've all started out at number one. Everybody has to start from the same place. I started out the same place that you guys are starting out, except I started back in 95.

I've always tucked them back in because it helps hold the plant in. What the plant's going to do is develop new roots down in the bottom. The aerial roots probably are not going to do much. When they get this long, I trim the aerial roots back, and then what will happen is they'll develop new roots once it's tucked down into the pot. A lot of the baskets used to be made with South American hardwoods. Now they're not made with South American hardwoods and they decompose relatively fast. A basket like this you'll get about four or five years out of with our humidity and moisture. That doesn't mean don't use them. They're still great for potting, and especially with phalaenopsis, they love this because they get plenty of drainage and they can sit outside in the weather. You can either pot them in sphagnum or you can pot them in bark.

Come on up front. You've been doing this. Well, it's not, hey, we're crowded. It's probably telling you that there's something going on with the roots down in the pot, that there's something wrong, that this needs to be repotted. All right, I'm going to let you repot this, but we're going to repot it into a basket with bark.

You got it. Okay, you know what to do? Kind of sorta. You want it in straight bark or a bark? Yeah, it's just this bark right here. I'm planning on screwing something up. I'll be right up. I can't hear you. With these baskets, you know, my number one complaint with these baskets is that the holes in the bottom are too wide and they don't hold the bark in the basket. You can do several things. You can use screen in the bottom or you can use moss or you can use that brown fiber that you use for hanging baskets. Well, it's a coconut core mat that they make. You can buy it here by the foot or you can buy it in pre-made basket forms or stuff or just cut it to the size. I like to take old screen and cut it to the shape, put it in the bottom, and then I'll pot on top of that.

Which one? Screen. The screen. Yeah. And that holds it in. If I was at home and I didn't know any better, I'd put moss in the bottom to keep the bark from falling through. Moss is probably the easiest way to keep the bark from falling out the bottom. No, you can do it here. I had a little bit of trouble at first with it coming out the sides. Poke the moss in the sides in my own and then pull the moss out a little bit later. Yeah, you can do that. Once the roots get around it, the moss will come apart. As long as you're not using a real thick layer of moss in the bottom, it will drain out okay.

What you want to do is just try and stop that bark from falling out the bottom. And the clippers are clean too, so don't worry about that. How many of you buy orchids with these stupid straight wires? Yes, they're clean. They're sterilized. I hate these things and I hate them for a reason. I've almost taken my own eye out with these things. Be very careful with these. Any commercial orchid grower, if they're growing these things, should be bending these things over. They should be bending them over so it's not a blunt sharp object. Rob down at Odom's is famous for doing this to me and I've chewed them out several times and then I've taken the wire hangers out and beat them with them. I'm like, stop doing that. I about took my eye out at that last show on one of the plants. I didn't see it. It was sticking up straight up and boy my head went down and it caught me like right here.

You kind of cut away from me. You describe things with your hands. You might poke me with my little pointy thing. Oh, you're fine. Okay. I just don't want to cut you. No. The phalaenopsis you can repot just about any time of year. Any of the other orchids with pseudobulbs, they tend to slow down during the winter months. They're not growing as fast. You can repot. I recommend that you make sure that the plant doesn't move around. Once you repot it, stick it somewhere, leave it alone and let it grow back out. Once it starts developing new roots and new growth, you want to be very careful.

Now you have a conundrum with your plant and I'll tell you guys why in a minute. I'm not far behind you. Now the only thing with the aerial roots is when I, with orchids, when you're going to repot an orchid, how do you get this mess back in that pot? Pretty much like that. You can do it. You can do it several ways. If you want to do it that way and you want to fight it, you can do it that way, but you can also trim these. Okay. Trim these. I usually, on an orchid, will trim the roots back to four inches. I'll hold my fingers out like that, down from the plant, and then I will trim everything from here down. That way it goes back in a pot or goes back in a basket very easily.

And stimulates growth. And stimulates new root growth. So let's just give it a whack right about there. Perfect. That's it. That's going to be a whole lot easier to get in there. That's it. But it's going to be a mess getting it out of that. Oh yeah. When they come out of here and grow down and back in and up and around and it looks like crazy. They completely take over. What will happen is once the roots start to develop on this, they'll come out in between these openings and they'll wrap all around this basket. It will be in there through a class five hurricane. Now the basket may fly away, but the orchid will still be in it.

Go ahead and where's that bark? Yes. Now you want to use the cinnamon on that? I do. And I love that trick. I learned that trick from an old orchid grower up in Apopka. Fender's Flora. All the plants that they grew were award-winning plants and just phenomenal. And Susan Fender taught me this. The problem with a lot of the old orchid growers is they will not tell you their tips and tricks. That's why you go to orchid societies because you see some of those crabby old people and you learn their secrets. I learned from Tom Ritter in Orlando. We just lost Tom last year. Tom was probably 98 when he passed away and even at 98 was out in the greenhouse. The only way I learned anything from Tom was by sitting back watching and observing him.

What I would do is kind of splay those aerial roots out like that, center up the orchid and then start putting the bark in. Correct. Now what he's done is he's positioned that in the middle of the basket, fanned the roots out. Remember I told you the roots grew out like a spider. Fan those roots out, even them out and then fill it in with the bark and get the bark to go down in between the roots. And for me it sometimes helps to pick it up a little bit and so the more the finer type stuff gets underneath. Yeah, you want to fill in all those cavities in between the roots and you can poke it in with a finger. Do not take an old stick and use it to poke down in there because the end of that stick is going to carry germs and virus on it. And if you use that stick on one plant, to another plant, to another plant, you just transferred everything to each plant.

I think after a couple of waterings I'd re-inspect it and see how I did. Looks pretty good to me. I did okay. Yeah, did it really good. Congratulations. Couldn't have done it better myself. When you're re-potting into a pot there are pieces that you can use on the side of the pot that will go down across the plant. In a basket I just use a straight wire, put it in and slip it in under one of the pieces and I go from side to side and I'll lock it in.

Now with this, because you've just trimmed it, you've pruned all the roots, you just put cinnamon on it, give it three or four days before you water it. Let those cuts heal up a little bit and then you can start a regular watering program, watering about twice a week and bark twice a week and moss once a week.

Okay, now before we get into the monster I'm going to go into fertilizer and pesticides and fungicides because, and I'm going to hit on fungicides first because this is that time of year when you need to really watch your plants. Now, this time of year you run the risk of really getting into some fungal problems and on certain plants you will see where you'll get a yellow spot on a leaf with a ring or a brown spot with a yellow ring around the edge of it. That's fungus. Okay, the way to stop fungus, especially earlier in the season before we get really cold weather and we get all the rain, is apply a systemic fungicide and this is going to go fast because it's the only bottle they've got left.

This is thiamyl. How many of you have ever heard of Cleary's 3336? Nope, nobody. Okay, Cleary's 3336 is one of the top selling fungicides for orchids. This is the active ingredient in that fungicide. It is a tenth of the price of the Cleary's and it does the same thing that the Cleary's does but it's a wettable powder. You take like a teaspoon and put it in a gallon of water and it works great, especially on vandas. With vandas you'll get little lesions on the leaves. I don't have one to show you with any lesions so there's a type of fungus that we call tycrud in the business and it gets like little elongated diamond lesions on the leaf. When it gets wet, those lesions actually start producing spores and they will go to other plants through water. So if you've got that over other vandas and it's got those lesions on it, it will spread from plant to plant and tycrud will go through a whole collection in almost a couple of weeks. It is a nasty fungus. This is the only thing that I've seen that will keep it under control is thiamyl. Yes, thiamyl. T-H-I-O-M-Y-L.

Once you find a fungus, you need to get on it quick because the fungus will take out a plant within a week. Alright, that's one type. Another type of fungicide is daconil and diethane M45. I use these two together. When I use these two, I don't use them separately. I use these two together when I use these as a fungicide because they help do everything that this does. If I'm not using this, I'm using this.

The red one is daconil and it's a milky substance. The diethane M45 is a powder and it's a yellow, like sulfur-colored powder. When you mix these up, you really have to shake them up together and get it really mixed up in the tank when you use it. Let me finish one thing. If this powder settles in the bottom, it will cake so you have to make sure that it's stirred up.

I'm going to say anything about any of these chemicals. If you're using any of these chemicals, wear long sleeves, wear gloves, wear a respirator mask. Do not breathe this stuff in. Be careful with it. I can't tell you how many different people in the orchid industry that have succumbed and have had issues from the chemicals that they use. Now, the chemicals that we have available to us these days are not what those orchid growers were dealing with or what they can buy. Just like any chemical, be careful, use protection, wear gloves, wear long sleeves. I know one orchid grower that used to go in with a tank sprayer. He'd mix 13 chemicals in a tank, mix it all up. He'd go in in flip flops, shorts, a white t-shirt and just fog the heck out of the greenhouse. The man now has 30% use of his lungs. All the veins in his legs have all had to be replaced and it's all from these chemicals.

The orchid grower here, Indian River Orchids out on 90th Avenue, Wendy Griffin, succumbed to a brain tumor. They suspect it was the chemicals from the fungicide and pesticides. They don't know what caused it, but we lost Wendy about two years ago. When you're using any of these chemicals, you want to use something that's called a spreader sticker. Any of the commercial nurseries will carry a spreader sticker. What this is, is it's a surfactant. It's a type of agricultural soap. When you mix it with the fungicides or the pesticides, it actually for... it's like you when you go into the shower, you wash your hair, you put shampoo in. What happens if you don't rinse that shampoo out? You've got this nasty mess in your hair, right? Okay, that's what this does with those pesticides and fungicides. It leaves that residue on the plant and it makes it stay so it actually does its job. Use a spreader sticker with any of your chemicals. Use it with your fertilizer because it helps the fertilizer stick to the plant, it just doesn't wash through the pot.

Now, fertilizer. How many of you fertilize your plants once a month? How many of you fertilize every two weeks? How many every six months? Oh come on. How many of you fertilize at all? Every year or two. Okay, I'm going to tell you a secret. The stuff that you're growing the orchids in has no nutritional value. It's like putting cardboard in the pot with the orchids; they're not going to get any nutritional value out of that media at all, period. You have to fertilize. If you want flowers, you got to give them some food. It's like giving you a McDonald's hamburger at the end of the month and telling you go ahead, we'll see you in a month. Let's see how you look in a month. Now, I wouldn't recommend McDonald's hamburgers, but what the heck.

The pesticides, and here's where I really throw caution out. These are the things that cause problems, I think more so than the fungicides. The pesticides, if they're killing insects, what are they doing to you? Please use protection when you use this stuff. Use it wisely, don't overuse it and don't use the same thing every time. What happens is when you use it every time, the insects become resistant.

This one is a systemic insect killer. It's a menacloprid. This is the one that everybody says is killing all the bees. Now, in an orchid collection, no, it's not killing the bees. If you go out and spray your whole yard with this, yeah, I would say you'd have problems. How many of you know that most of the big commercial nurseries, most of the plants that are brought into those garden centers are treated with this? Yeah. Okay. Use it but be careful. This, no, I'm sorry. This is the menacloprid. This is the one that kills the bees, so be careful. This one is what we call asophate or orthene. Normally orthene comes in a little tin can and it stinks to high heaven. When you use this, it's going to stink for about four days. Usually, the smell will go away relatively quickly, so it's not an issue.

These two chemicals, how many of you know what thrips are? How many of you have gardenias in your yard? Hibiscus? Thrip magnets, they love them. Thrips are little tiny, like little grain of rice of... it's an insect with a little rasping mouth that actually goes across the tissue of the plant and scrapes the tissue and drinks the juices off the plant. We have about seven or eight different species of thrips in this state. Most of them now are becoming resistant to the chemicals that we've been using for years. Things like malathion, diazinon, stuff like that don't work against them anymore. Menacloprid is one of the newer chemicals, it will actually work on them. The asophate, which is this... now asophate you can buy as a fire ant killer. It comes as a powder. You can actually use that, the same as this. This is just the liquid form. This is easier to disperse than the powder. Yes?

On the pesticides, yes you can use neem oil. I recommend very... to be very careful with anything that's an oil-based pesticide, especially here in Florida, because if you put it on in the morning and we get our full sun and it gets hot, that neem oil can actually burn the plants up. So you can use oil products, just be... use it in the evening when the sun is setting and let them go over the night. I don't recommend using neem oil during the summer at all. It's just too hot. I'm very, very cautious with any oil-type product, but you can use those.

Now fungicides. You can use hydrogen peroxide in the root mass and on the plant. It will kill fungus off also, just straight hydrogen peroxide out of the pharmacy. You can spray it and prevent it from starting. So use it as a preventative, and it's more natural and you don't have to worry about the chemicals.

Fertilizers, like I said, the pots don't have anything in them to give that plant any nutrition. The only way you're going to get that plant to grow and grow bigger and get more flowers is you've got to feed it. Now at home I've got a system where it injects a fertilizer concentrate into my water lines. Every time I water, I get a very diluted ratio of fertilizer on my plants. I'm pushing my plants. I want them to get bigger. I want more flowers. I want to show them. I want to get them judged. You know, that's what I'm going for. That's how you get that. And that's how you get more flower spikes and a bigger plant.

Now, that's a type of orchid also that's really ticked off at the heat during the summer and the fertilizer burn the leaf tips, but that's normal for that plant in our climate. So it's a really neat plant and unfortunately it didn't bloom for me last weekend at the show, so I have to deal with that.

I fertilized everything. Plant, flowers, roots, everything. When my fertilizer goes off, it hits everything. I'm not, you know, I don't just water certain things like the roots or just in the plant. Everything in mine gets watered and fertilized. So I've heard people say that the fertilizer burns the flowers. No, fertilizer does not burn the flowers unless you're mixing it so strong it's like acid. You want to use a weaker formula more frequently than using a strong formula once a month. Now, I'm going to tell you it's just like you and the McDonald's hamburger. You know, if I give you a McDonald's hamburger once a month and you're a kid, how well do you think you're going to grow? You're not. I recommend a half dosage of what the packages recommend weekly. They call that weakly-weekly. Cut the fertilizer in half to what they recommend and apply it every week. You'll get better, you'll get bigger flower spikes, you'll get bigger flowers, you'll get a bigger plant, much quicker.

Now fertilizers, does it matter which type of fertilizer you use? True. Depends on what you want to do. If you've just repotted and you want to get that plant reestablished, you want to give it something to develop roots, the bloom booster, the fertilizer with the higher middle number will help you establish those roots. Use it once a month. The all-purpose fertilizers like a 20-20-20, you can use that all the time. This is going to help you establish roots and help you establish better flower spikes. Now don't forget the spreader sticker with it. Where is here?

How many of you have the slow-release pellets? How many of you have... what's the old one? Osmocote. Who's using Osmocote? Don't use it on your orchids. Osmocote on your orchids will, in Florida's heat and humidity, will dump all that fertilizer at once and will burn the roots on the plant. Use what this is now. Osmocote is actually making a new formula called Sunny Coat and it's the yellow beads. This you can use, but don't use regular Osmocote. The other product that you can use is Dynamite, the silver pellets. I use Dynamite, I haven't started using this yet because it hasn't become commercially available to any of my suppliers yet, but you can use this just as well. And when you repot, about a teaspoon to a tablespoon per plant. If it's a four-inch plant, about a teaspoon; a six-inch plant to an eight-inch plant, a tablespoon on top of the plant when you first fertilize or first repot it. What that does is even if you're kind of lazy about watering and fertilizing your plants, if it rains, they're going to get a little bit of fertilizer that drips down from that fertilizer onto the plant so it's going to feed it. I recommend you do this with all your plants when you repot them. It just helps give them that extra push if you're not real faithful with feeding your plants.

This is just house plant, house plant bromeliad and orchid food. This is... I believe what they call Sunny Coat. It's the yellow pellet. How many of you use fish emulsion? One person, that's it? You want to talk about something that will develop roots on a plant? Holy mackerel! If you put this on, this will put roots on that plant. And remember with your orchids, the more roots, the bigger the roots, the bigger the plant, the bigger the flowers, the bigger the bloom spikes. And it doesn't take a lot. You know, if you live on the river, you're used to that smell, especially here in Vero when you get down by Barber Bridge. It doesn't even faze me.

I believe that's like a tablespoon to a gallon of water. It goes a long way. How many of you have well water? How many of you just have city water or county water? Okay, city water or county water is just fine. It has a little bit of chlorine. It'll help keep the algae off the roots on the vandas. It won't harm the plants. I water every one of my plants on city water. I pay for it with the city of Vero Beach, but I water my plants with city water. Rainwater is probably the best thing that you can use to water your plants. It's what the plants are used to getting in the wild naturally. The chemical makeup on it is much better.

Okay, there's an issue with water in this area. The pH level is high, at 7.8 or maybe higher, up to 8. Orchids do not absorb fertilizer efficiently when the pH is that high. Bingo. White vinegar. Add about a teaspoon to a tablespoon to a gallon of water. White vinegar or lemon juice will help bring that pH level back down so the plants can actively absorb that fertilizer. Okay, I can't hear you. No, you put it on the whole plant. When you water the orchids, the part of the plant that's going to absorb most of the fertilizer is the root system. Some of the fertilizer will get absorbed through the leaves, but most of the fertilizer is going to get absorbed through the roots. So that's where you want to try and concentrate that food.

Okay, I do fish emulsion at least once a month. It depends on how often you want to smell it or how often your neighbors want to smell it. If you've got a neighbor beside you that's being a real pain in the butt, fish emulsion. When you see an orchid with a little growth on it like that with the roots coming off, a kiki is Hawaiian for baby. This plant has a whole bunch of kikis. That's also a way for me to get new plants. So you can separate the kiki, you can pot it up. The only thing with the kiki is you want to make sure it's got at least four roots and those roots are at least four inches long. That's when you can separate it. This is probably just big enough to take off and put in a small, like two-inch pot or a small basket.