A Dancing Lady Orchid on the Rocks
A couple years ago, while repotting a Dancing Lady Orchid, part of the plant broke off. With a few leaves, roots, and pseudobulbs, I could have put it the small piece back the pot with the rest of the plant, but I decided to experiment. We have a few large stones in the backyard, shaded underneath a juniper tree. There was a shallow divot in a rock where the cutting fit well. With a little bit of glue and moss, I set it in place. Since then, it’s attached itself to the rock with new roots, and it’s been blooming for a couple months. Originally, I thought that it might be too shaded by the tree, and wouldn’t receive enough light to bloom, but it’s proven me wrong.
Dancing Lady Orchids, or Oncidiums, are popular houseplants, and some types are cool growers which enjoy our foggy climate. This one appears happy growing as a lithophyte, or “rock plant.” It started as an office orchid that Dave brought home years ago, without a nametag, thus earning its status as “Oncidium NOID.” There are lots of Oncidium hybrids, and it might be an impossible task to pin down a name.
While the mother plant continues to grow well outdoors in a pot, its flowers were devoured by snails this year. Maybe the rough stone keeps the snails away from the rock plant. Its flowers have already weathered strong winds and chilly nights, and they’re still going. It’s an orchid experiment that’s definitely been paying off.
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