There's nothing to it. That's what F's Aunt used to say, but she could couldn't she. She lived in Auckland.
"You have to be mean to them."
Being mean to them would be trying to grow them in Dunedin.
F hated orchids. Well, no, hate is strong. She kind of admired the flowers but they always seemed too artificial somehow, like someone molded them in silk and painted them with the wildest colours from a modern palette. That, and the fact you would only see them growing in a tropical house at the Botanic Gardens if you lived in Dunedin, made them rather unfit for a draughty old villa overlooking the beach at St Clair.
People give them to you as gifts. "You're a gardener, we thought you'd love this." It's as if being a gardener meant you could grow parsnips in Piraeus, or Brussels sprouts in Grenada, Cloud berries in Florida, or oranges in Scotland.
'The plant for the place' is F's gardening mantra. Let nature do the rest and none of it is hard work. F doesn't regard plants as a challenge to be tackled. Orchids look like a challenge. Let's face it, they do look like a high maintenance socialite don't they?
Awkwards. She has always called them that.
She does accept (and except from this post) that there are grassland orchids which 'abound' (possibly overstating it) and delighted us in unexpected places close to home in UK - even in the grass beside the stream. They are probably difficult to grow 'in cultivation' too but this post isn't about them. It's about the neon pink orchid that a dinner guest presented to us a little over a year ago. F smiled on the outside but her heart sank.
But....
It flowered and flowered and flowered and..... well it dropped its dried up pink petals here for months. Eventually it got the old stalk cut off and was moved to a shady spot on the balcony. (Clearly not shady enough because it has a sunburn spot on one leaf.) Feeling guilty about winter coming on and seeing it has yellowed (oops), F relented and permitted it to come indoors again.
It probably isn't humid enough for it here but it struggled on.... some new leaves and now look
Oooh a triffid!
ReplyDeleteT'riffic - just what we needed; a cat eating plant.
DeleteI am happy to hear there is at least one other orchid hater in this world. I don't like the way they look, never have. everyone at selby gardens goes right to the orchid house and oohs and ahs and i pass it by to see the jungle plants. the kind that grow by throwing them on the ground. twice while i was among the working class, i received one as a gift. mine did not live very long.. I even handed it to green thumb hubby and said see if you can keep this alive, that was the 2nd one i received. it died. i am thinking it felt my dislike vibes, like a dog can tell if someone hates them
ReplyDeleteHari OM
ReplyDeleteyeah, I tend to think of orchids in much the same way as F, it has to be admitted... but the father had two on his kitchen counter beside the south facing kitchen window. No humidity there. They more or less got ignored apart from the once a month someone remembered to dribble some water their way. Then, each year, each in its own time, they'd surprise us with a stalk like this. So yeah. Be mean to them! YAM xx
Ohhhhh how exciting
ReplyDeleteI too don’t really like orchids
Kinda like a lot of worry for not much really
I prefer the plant them and forget them kinda flowers
And definitely outside with air conditioning in the summer and fires going in the winter
It would be totally confused as to what it should be doing at any given season
I'm not an orchid person but I grew up in Auckland so know it well.
ReplyDelete