On Growing Problematic Orchids

I have a small collection of orchids that I’ve received as gifts or purchased over the years. They languished for a long time. After the flowers they came with dropped, they stopped blooming.

I’ve never been good at paying enough attention to keep picky plants alive. But I didn’t throw them out. I just put them in places with just enough light, watered weekly, and hoped for the best.

Until I realized that information was online, only a click away, and lifted the plastic conainers out of their ceramic pots to find a pools of water collected at the bottom. The roots were brown and mushy, rotted. My regular, overly generous watering was drowning the roots.

So I purchased potting bark, took the orchids out of their plastic pots, and shook off the old, rotting potting medium. I cut off the rotted roots, and replanted in fresh bark. I still water weekly, but not more than a quarter of a cup. Sometimes I will lift the plastic container from the ceramic pot to check, making sure the bark gets wet but has time to dry before the next watering. For the most part, the orchids have recovered from their wet years and flower, though I have a couple that are holding out on me.

A couple months ago I was wondering how to grow orchids from seed. I quickly found that the process is a detailed, scientific endeavor involving words like microscopic and contagion and years. Definitely not for me. But I did find orchid growers who sell tiny orchid starts. They sell them in bundles of twenty to twenty-five that have been growing together in a closed environment, jumbled together in a glass bottle or plastic container for a year or two.

I decided that this I could try. I ordered two types from an orchid conservatory and heard back right away. One variety would require a wait of a couple months. The orchid starts weren’t ready for unflasking..

But the other variety was ready. There was one catch. The orchids were Problematic. They hadn’t been unflasked at the right time so had been growing together for three and a half years, so some of the seedlings were no longer viable. I could go on a waiting list and wait for the next regular flask or, if I was willing, they could sell me a virtual flask. They would unite two of the Problematic Flasks, let them adapt to each other for few weeks, and send them to me.

I was intrigued with the idea of having Problematic Orchids, and after a flurry of emails back and forth, an agreement was reached, and I prepared. I purchased potting medium—sphagnum moss, a stack of 3 1/2 inch plastic pots, plant fertilizer, and waited.

When the Problematic Orchids arrived a few weeks later, I set up my planting station on a table on our deck. I took the mass of teeny tiny entwined seedlings out of their plastic baggie and settled in for the delicate task of detangling and sorting the separated seedlings onto paper towels. It took almost an hour.

There were a lot. Almost sixty. More than I had moss for, so I ordered more moss and finished the planting a few days later.

I now have ten containers that hold from two to sixteen baby orchids each. They look nothing like the online photos I’ve found of this process where straight rows of similar-sized leaves line up neat and ready to grow. Mine are either long and wiry or tiny and vulnerable. About thirty look like they’re making it.

Scott asked if I plan to sell these, if this is a business opportunity. I laughed. This process will require at least two years to grow a flowering orchid, likely longer. People can pick up an orchid for $15 at Aldi or Kroger. And anyway, who knows what I’ll be about in two, three, or four years. I do have a sliver of a dream though. My young adult daughter has begun doing pottery on a wheel, and I imagine flowering orchids growing in ceramic pots shaped and glazed by her hands that we could sell together. I shared the dream with her, and she smiled wide. That would be fun. But who knows what and where we will be in two, three, or four years. She may be on to something else.

I may be as well. I left my job of six years in August and am finishing my doctoral dissertation. The future is particularly uncharted right now. I know what I need to do—research and write—and that is my focus. I don’t think much about what is beyond. That’s why I got the orchids. So much is unknown and some parts of my life, like this dissertation, take a while. The slow, almost imperceptible growth of these orchids is a visual reminder of patience and faithful care.

I should receive the regular unflasked orchids in the next month or so. I imagine the bundle will be 20-25 like-sized viable seedlings. Their pots will look like the ones online, neat and tidy. I will put them next to the Problematic ones, water and watch.