Mini Orchid Replant!
- Mar 24, 2016
- 3 min read
I have two orchids. one mini orchid, and one full size orchid, I bought for half off. Did I mention I am cheap, lol of course who isn't nowadays. My husband actually talked me into getting the big one because of how much I loved the little one. I do love orchids!!
As you can see in this first picture I have not removed anything after the flower blooms died. At the time I thought that a baby could grow on the spike. According to Just Add Ice Orchids(1), the stem won't reproduce once it has become brown and shirveled. I have to get some new scissors before I can cut off this guys spikes. I was really hoping my orchid would have a baby though! The plant is really healthy though and I am very happy for that!
It's really big though for such a little pot. This orchid is know as a Phalaenopsis Orchid, a type of epiphyte. These things are aweswome!! Just Add Ice Orchids says, "orchids are epiphytes – a term indicating a plant that lives off other plants, but in a non-parasitic way."(2) The green root growing out of the pot is called an air root. Just Add Ice Orchids describes the plants ability to, "attach themselves to trees, ... [and] use their airborne roots to absorb the moisture and carbon dioxide they need to thrive directly from the air."(3) That is so cool! I would really like to see orchids growing in the wild!
The dead bloms fell off as I started to work with the plant. The spikes are quite a bit more firmly attached. I have yet to cut them off but I need some new scissors first. I could tell that my orchid needed a new pot by looking at it's roots. You can see in the following pictures that the roots were filling up it's small pot.
The first thing I needed to do after collecting my supplies and taking the orchid out of the pot is to remove all of the old potting medium from the roots. This was a real learning curve becuase I had never used this type of medium before and it is not the same as dirt that's for sure!
In the above picture you can see the roots with all the medium removed. The potting medium that the grocery store used clung to the roots and was difficult to work with. I overcame this with a bucket of water, which you can see in the background of the first of these two pictures. Once I had removed as much as posible I swished the roots in the water are was able to remove the rest of the medium from its roots. Make sure you remember to remove any dried up and shriveled air roots. Wow, my orchid sure looks healthy!!!
Orchids don't use normal potting mediums. Orchid mix actually looks like some bark that fell into potting soil and someone quickly removed it. You can see in the above pictures what the soil looks like. How weird!
What's really weird is that I bought this one from the grocery store look at the potting medium they used! It doesn't look anything like the one I just bought! I wonder how healthy this stuff is for the orchid! I know with African Violets you need to replace the soil after three months because the peat moss is chemically treated to slowly release moisture and after this time period the peat moss retains more water and can cause root rot and other diseases!
It felt really wierd to work with this stuff it literally feels like a pile of dirty bark. Air roots require a lot of air. I put a bit of medium at the bottom of the pot then I put in the plant and filled the pot with medium. I did NOT push it down or try to pack it in. The whole thing was way easier than I had anticipated!
You can see in the background the old pot and the new one. There is a big difference between the two so I am hoping that it takes off and grows a lot after this!
The more I learn about orchids the more interested I am in them. They are so unique and there are so many different kinds! I will be keeping my eye out for different ones now! Send me pictures of your favorite orchid (or any plant/flower) and you could be featured on the website!! As always don't forget to join the conversation! http://tabithamay84.wix.com/growingroots#!the-conversation/izx70
These orchids are awesome!! They are easily my favorite flowering plant. The flowers are thick and durable and they last forever, which is always a bonus!!!
Referrences
1. http://www.justaddiceorchids.com/orchid-care-cutting-stems
2.http://www.justaddiceorchids.com/Just-Add-Ice-Orchid-Blog/bid/92503/History-of-Epiphytes-Phalaenopsis-Orchids
3. http://www.justaddiceorchids.com/Just-Add-Ice-Orchid-Blog/bid/86870/Orchid-Care-What-are-Air-Roots
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