Orchids are some of the most popular plants that you can see in most gardens and floral settings and arrangements. In fact, they form the largest family of flowering plants in the entire world. Who doesn’t love their very alluring and spectacular flowers? Sure, these cute things may not have the fresh, lovely scent like what other typical flowers have, but they sure have all the looks that they need to keep any garden beautiful. Proper maintenance and care of these plants is your top priority to make sure that these plants never lose their precious sparkle in your garden.
To take care of orchid plants well, there are the extreme basics. There is of course the regular “dosage” of water for the plant to absorb, but many of you know already that orchids are far more different that most ordinary plants. To start off, orchids never grow their roots deep in the ground like any other plant; the roots literally grow upwards. So, you are generally limited to watering the plant, using any other means like spraying water is not recommended, because you might also unintentionally water the flowers (which could potentially kill the plant due to fungi growth.). You are also not allowed to let the orchid sit in the water for so long, you’ll just drown them eventually.
Keep the surrounding temperature at a constant level. Orchids are very sensitive when it comes to sudden temperature spikes. You can find its leaves turning into yellow if you don’t take note of this properly. If this actually happens though, just clip the yellow foliage and start being more careful from now on. Their appetite for nutrition seems to go lower as the atmospheric temperature drops, so that means little or no food for winter, and a little application of new fertilizer during spring. Oh, and by the way, the regular temperature for most orchids is 65-85ºF (18-30ºC).
Providing a proper container is also critical if you want to take care of orchid plants well. Orchids are the type of plants that do not actually grow in soil (it will kill them!), but instead latch themselves onto tree barks and absorb water and nutrients from it. It is best to prepare a mixture of attached tree barks or cork for these plants, as this will serve as the “soil” for the plant to grow. The pot to be used can be of the standard type, as long as it is porous enough and can drain water out well (remember what we said earlier about letting the sit long in the water?). Like any other growing plant, you’ll have to replace the pot with a larger one ever so often, so as not to “constrict” its roots from the pot that it has outgrown.
0 comments