What U must know about ORCHIDS
You‘re like fragile flower of orchid
Calling by cleanliness of the lines
Leaning on strong glass of your seat
You blossom with no loving signs
… The Edge
ORCHIDS.
Totally there exist more than 35 thousand kinds and grades of orchid flowers (including the well-known vanilla) in the nature they are widespread in both hemispheres, but only an insignificant part of the variety could be considered as room orchids. Thus some orchids can quite easily adapt for room conditions and do not demand special leaving, and some orchids demand experience and special knowledge for their cultivation.
An orchid flower is very curiously ‘arranged’. An orchid has a special thickening on a stalk which the pseudo-potatoes to create stocks of water and nutrients, it can be spherical, the cylindrical or it may have the form of an egg. The pseudo-potatoes is usually situated right down on a rhizome. From a top of a pseudo-potatoes leaves and blossom bringers, where there are settled down the flowers of all kinds, despite of a variety of forms and colors, they have an identical structure: there’s a lip – the bottom petal, on each side from a lip there are two lateral cup-petal, above them there are two more lateral petals and a flower is crowned with a top cup-petal.
CARE of ORCHIDS.
Each kind of orchids demands its own conditions of the maintenance, but there are general requirements which need to be carried out for all room orchids.
Orchids are the photophilous plants, so they need the bright diffused light not less than 10-15 hours per day, therefore they require an additional artificial illumination in the winter. In the summer, on the contrary, orchids should be preserved against direct solar beams. These plants are also thermophilic, therefore the desirable temperature is 20-25 degrees in the summer, and in the winter not below 17 degrees. At night the temperature can be on 2-3 degrees lower.
There are some special requirements to humidity of air and soil. Orchids demand high humidity, but in the
same time you should control thetemperature of air. At surplus of moisture in a substratum, in a combination to low temperature, a rhizome rots easily. Tiny species of orchids are good for growing up in and aquariums and terrariums. In this case, owing to the big stock of water in pseudo-potatoes, you can practically not water a plant, but air periodically.
Orchids do not stand closeness and too warm air at all, that’s why you should often air the premises where they are situated, at if possible to put plants on the fresh air, but thus to watch, that there is no cold drafts to ruin a plant.
For the majority of plants the mix of the ready flower ground with sand can serve as a soil. Also you can successfully use the special ground for orchids which is sold in shops. You can use little stones or fragments of polyfoam as a drainage. Plant an orchid in the low pot filled thus. To look after these plant using the described above advices, not forgetting to feed up in the summer 2-3 times complex fertilizers for flowers which it is recommended to dissolve half.
Find out what is your flower’s habitat of dwelling and if the orchid usually lives in a forest laying of a tropical wood, fill its pot with a fresh moss, substratum from a pine bark of average fraction and a moss or a substratum on the basis of peat. You can place this mix in an aquarium or to bigger jar and to grow up an orchid there, but in this case you will have constantly to feed up the plant with fertilizers in little dozes with the small maintenance of nitrogen.
But orchids feel themselves all better on a tray with a pebble with water so that the pot isn’t shipped in water. Orchids require close pots for better blossom. You can replace flowers only when the growth stops.
Orchids more often duplicate by division of a bush. Thus you should try to divide a bush so that in each part remains not less than three shanks. You can also try to implant a shank, but thus you should take a ground which consists mostly of sand with addition of the ground for flowers, and to watch the humidity of ground that shanks not rot.
KINDS of ORCHIDS.
Doctor D.G.Khessajon in the book “All about indoor plants” recommends 10 kinds of orchids for cultivation in room conditions. It is Catlea which grow up in glass capacity, its flower has a diameter of 10-15сm, it demands a heat and humidity of air, Celogina with a flower of 5-10сm, Zimbidium is the tiny orchid with a flower of 4 cm in diameter, Likasta has yellow flowers, 10 cm in diameter.
The flower Miltony is similar to a violet. It is a very beautiful flower which does not fade about 4 weeks, it also has many hybrids. This orchid does not stand any fluctuations of temperature. Odontoglossum has a flower with a diameter of 15см in. Paphiopedlum (Venerin shoe) has the flower with a lip in the form of a bag. Falenopsis on bent flower bringers has inflorescences with flat flowers up to 5 cm in diameter, Vanda is a high orchid with air roots and large flowers, Vilestekeara is a cultural hybrid, a flower is up to 10 cm, it demands good illumination, high humidity of air and a dormant period in the winter.
Let’s also add Dendrobium noble, it has gentle, white-pink flowers, after flowering, before a dormant period (temperature of the maintenance of 10-12 degrees) it loses leaves, Gemaria (differently Ludisia) is appreciated for the beauty of its leaves, it can stay in an aquarium. Madodeks is the tiny orchid which does not love differences of temperatures too, it demands high humidity, it suitable for an aquarium too.
