Welcome Home, BDo!

by Trixie

I must admit, I do very little to assist in my husband’s orchid hobby.  It started as his solo obsession, and I believe it will remain that way.  It is awesome to watch his enjoyment at helping things to grow (something I have never given much thought). He is meeting new people, discovering a new vocabulary, and having lots of fun writing about his growing love of all things orchid.

For my part, I am a good photographer, and I am always ready to jump into action when I see a kitty being cute, when there is exciting kitty/watering-day action, and to take pictures of pretty orchids.

This past week has been Spring Cleaning time at our house.  The orchid room (formally the “guest room” but it was decided that there would be more room for orchids if we got rid of the guest bed) has been a bit daunting to me, since it basically belongs to BDo, the kitties, and the orchids.

BDo left me with very specific watering instructions, which I followed exactly.  I was very careful of all the pretties, and took care to make sure they were happy.  But something was just striking me as wrong with the orchid arrangement. There was so much wasted window space! What “we” needed was some height, some room to hang plants, and better use of space.

Although I had been admonished to wait, and let him do the rearranging of the orchid room upon his return, I simply couldn’t. I needed to make things happen at the speed that makes me happy and satisfied, whereas BDo will wait months and months for a single flower to open.  I do have accidents when I get moving too fast and I wanted to make sure to be alone while working on the orchid transfer…..just in case.

You can see the before and after results of my labor in these photos.  I am very happy that things look less cluttered.  He was very happy to see how much room he has to play with, and he immediately started planning what Brassavolas he would be bringing home from the Oklahoma show.

Happy to do my part!  ~ Trixie

Orchid Enlightment

Pickles and Boomer (left) are featured here taking a little nap.   It must be exhausting to watch over the thousands of plants from EnLightened Orchids in Illinois.  

Ernie Gemeinhart from  
EnLightened was one of the standout speakers at the Mid-America Orchid Congress meetings this year.  He offered a lively exposition on the advantages of growing orchids under lights, but it had an overriding budget conscious, DIY message.  Instead of extolling the virtues of high intensity discharge lamps, Ernie championed a set-up of four 4' T8 40W shop light bulbs as a basic starting point.  One can build from there -- and he mapped the pros and cons of different lighting approaches -- but the overall strategy was inspirational in its hardware store simplicity.  You don't need expensive lights with elaborate rotating systems and cooling fans in order to grow prize-winning orchids.


He described some low-tech tricks to improve our orchid growing culture, like increasing humidity by pointing a box fan in a corner of the growing room facing a pan of water.  When the box fan burns out, he takes them apart and uses the grate to fashion homemade humidity trays.  Genius!  A lot of Ernie's insights can be found in an article he wrote for Orchids in 2007.  You can find more information at his website Enlightened Orchids where they specialize in orchids suitable for growing under lights and on windowsills (check out these gorgeous Paph. Species and Paph. Hybrids!)

I knew that Enlightened Orchids would make the Kitties Approved list because he mentioned that cat hair is the "magic ingredient" in his potting mix.

So, what insights are we going to incorporate into the Cats and Catts growing set-up?  I need Sabine to look into the possibilities.  Ernie seemed to think I had the right approach with supplementing my West-facing windowsill with two 42W compact fluorescent lights (CFLs) about an inch from our big plants (Blc. Mem-al-Na and B. Little Stars, both from Bird's Botanicals).  We might expand in that direction and increase the wattage and/or the number of the bulbs.  And if we increase the light we will have to consider adjusting the other cultural factors (another bit of wisdom reinforced in Ernie's talk).  But I'll have to review it all with Bean.