AboutOrchids

Apropos to the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday here in the USA, the back garden has been in abundant bloom, and there’s beauty all around to inspire gratitude. These pictures are from the past couple weeks, when we were having some unusually warm November weather. This female Anna’s Hummingbird stopped long enough at the feeder for a picture. On the right, a honeybee makes a visit to our lemon tree.

On the left, one of the last Plumeria flowers from my potted tree still has its wonderful scent. It’s produced continuous flowers since the spring, but now the plant is starting to go into winter hibernation. On the right, these orange Epidendrum flowers just opened in October.

This enormous White Bird of Paradise (scientific name Strelitzia nicolai) is in the banana family, and native to South Africa. What was once a 4 feet tall (1.2 m) houseplant in a pot grew into a 2-story tree in the ground, producing massive new blue and white flowers every few months. Those leaves grow as large as 7 feet (2.1 m.)

Cymbidiums are popular orchids, and here on the California coast, Cymbidium blooming season has started. This yellow one, possibly Cymbidium Golden Elf ‘Sundust,’ is a hybrid of Cymbidium ensifolium, which has traditionally been grown in China, Korea, and Japan for centuries.

To grow these beauties with their sweet, richly scented flowers, you need to provide an environment where the nighttime temperature drops 15-20 F (8-11 C) every night. Without these nightly temperature drops, these Cymbidiums won’t form flower spikes. Otherwise, these are easy to grow with bright light, regular water, and regular fertilizer.

Even when not in bloom, Cymbidiums are beautiful plants, with long, graceful, arching leaves. Although my variety has solid green leaves, some Chinese Cymbidiums have variegated leaves, with stripes or spots of color.

What would you say if I told you it’s possible to take a trip through the rainforests of the world without a single can of bug spray? You can with Rainforestby Ben Morgan and photographer Thomas Marent.

Marent spent 16 years traveling the world, taking pictures in rainforests on 5 continents. This gorgeous coffee-table book puts you in the midst of plants, animals, insects, and of course orchids from rainforests all over the world. Marent’s photographs capture the beauty of typical rainforest animals, like monkeys, birds, and snakes, but also many small creatures that could be easily overlooked by an inexperienced eye. Surprisingly, the beauty and colors are just as stunning from a butterfly in Brazil, a crayfish in Australia, or some tiny fungi in Indonesia.

With incredible photos and clear text, this book provides a visual lesson of orchids’ natural habitats in these rich, tropical forests. So now is your opportunity to visit tropical rainforests all over the world, and skip the bug spray.

I’ve heard orchid growers say that if nothing’s dying, then you’re not learning anything. True to form, when I kill an orchid, I try to figure out what went wrong so that I don’t repeat the mistake. With my coroner’s hat on, I’ll show you these pictures from happier times, before this orchid kicked the bucket last month.

This little orchid has quite a long name, Chondrorhyncha lendyana. It’s native to mountainous cloud forests from Mexico to Costa Rica. A few years ago I bought it at the San Francisco Orchid Show, and it bloomed reliably. This past spring, however, all its new leaves turned black and died. Thinking that it needed to be repotted, I discovered that this kind of orchid really doesn’t like having its roots disturbed. I repotted it anyway, and then it slowly dropped all its remaining leaves.

Ultimately, the problem was that I bought an orchid that I couldn’t properly care for.  This Chondrorhyncha should have been grown on a mount, not in a pot. When grown on a mount, repotting is unnecessary. However, mounted orchids with bare roots need constant high humidity and lots of watering. Since I don’t have a greenhouse or an automated watering system, that’s tough for me to guarantee all the time. In a pot, it only lasted about 3 years, but at least I could enjoy its flowers for a little while. Lesson learned, for now…

Besides saving whales and fighting corporate polluters, Greenpeace has successfully saved orchids and their habitats for decades. By working to preserve rainforests and wetlands, Greenpeace ensures essential wild spaces that orchids need. Over the years, their work has protected ancient forests all over the world, including orchid habitats in Brazil, Central Africa, and Indonesia. Greenpeace is also battling global warming, one of the worst threats to orchids. Through nonviolent direct action, lobbying, and research, Greenpeace is a strong voice all over the world for protection of the environment.

When Greenpeace was founded in Vancouver, Canada in 1971, its original purpose was to fight nuclear bomb tests. Over the years, the organization’s focus changed to environmental issues. Greenpeace now has offices in more than 40 countries around the world, and over 3 million financial contributors. Its international headquarters are located in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Look at that name again — it’s not a Dendrobium, but a Dendrochilum. Both kinds come from Southeast Asia, but Dendrochilums are a separate genus, distinguished by their chains of small flowers. This Dendrochilum tenellum is widespread among many islands of the Philippines, where it is native to cloud forests in mountainous areas.

Near the tips of the grass-like leaves, cascades of minuscule flowers resemble small cream-colored feathers. Not only do the leaves look like grass, but this orchid also grows into a large clump like a grass. Dendrochilums like bright light, regular water during spring and summer, and high humidity.

Each flower is less than 1/8 inch (3 mm) wide. With 30 or more mini-flowers per spike, a large plant can have thousands of flowers at once.

More people kill their orchids through overwatering than any other cause. Fall is particularly perilous time for overwatering, as plants start to go dormant, but people unwittingly continue the same watering regimen as they did in the growing season. With too much water, orchid roots will rot, and the leaves will follow. So this is the time of year to start to cut back. You may feel like you’re stressing the plant, but you’re actually just allowing it to rest. Maintain good humidity and air movement as always. Also start to cut back on fertilizer use.

Many kinds of orchids need this dormant period in the fall and winter. With a proper rest, they’ll awaken in spring with new flowers.

• Cattleya
• Cymbidium
• Dendrobium
• Epidendrum
• Miltonia
• Odontoglossum
• Oncidium
• Vanda

Not all orchids go through dormant periods. For these varieties, you can still cut back slightly on water and fertilizer as temperatures drop and days shorten in the fall.

• Masdevallia
• Paphiopedilum
• Phalaenopsis

It’s best to water early in day, so plants have a chance to dry off before evening. If orchid leaves remain wet at night, they may rot.

If an autumn chill already has you feeling blue, there is no better pick-me-up than lots of tropical and exotic orchid flowers. I suggest a visit to a local orchid show. Here is a sampling of November shows.

I’m  not quite sure what I did right to coax this Ionocidium into bloom, but I’m not complaining. This hybrid is a cross between 2 kinds of closely related orchids, an Ionopsis and an Oncidium.

The lip of the flower is light yellow when it starts to open, and then turns white after a couple days. On the uppermost part of the flower, a yellow cap covers small waxy balls of pollen.

Founded in 1989 in England, the World Land Trust (WLT) has been working to preserve the world’s most biologically important and threatened lands. So far, the WLT has saved over 375,000 acres (1518 square km) of wildlife habitats, including tropical forests, coastal steppes, and wetlands. Many of these habitats are orchid hot-spots, such as rainforests in Belize, Costa Rica, Ecuador, and the Philippines. With their “Save an Acre of Rainforest” campaign, WLT has also been able to protect valuable orchid habitats in Brazil, India, Malaysia, and Mexico.

The WLT contributes to educational projects, providing conservation materials to students and field guides that are essential for research. WLT’s work benefits us all, not only by saving endangered species, but also by regenerating important wildlife habitat that removes greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.