Tuesday, April 6, 2010

It's All About the Blossoms...

"The world well knows, yet none knows well, to shun the heaven that leads us to this hell."
~ Shakespeare's Sonnets

Seeing as how I minored in English Literature, (man! that got me a lot of job offers!) I feel qualified to interpret this quote, up above. I'm pretty sure Shakespeare was talking about getting Orchids to re-bloom.

I've received a lot of Why Bother? emails this morning, after I glorified Orchids in yesterday's post. From all sorts of gardeners questioning whether growing Orchids are worth it. "They're scary / They're fussy / They're blah, blah, blah."

All good points. (Especially that 3rd one.) But, riddle me this:

Why do we buy flowering annuals?
Because they flower forever and ever.

And, so do Orchids! The pretty pink gal in these pictures flowered from January through July! You can easily get 6 months of pretty indoor color out of an Orchid... all the while you're killing them.
My whole point is... you don't have to suffer through 6 months of non-bloom time. You could just toss her in the compost pile and buy yourself another one. That is, after all, what we do with our flowering annuals...

* I'm gaga over Phaleanopsis Moth Orchids because mine actually has re-bloomed. Which, naturally, makes me feel like a rock star. But, you could probably make this happen, too. She gets way more sun than she's supposed to. Plus, she's high as a kite on phosphorous and potassium. I water her once per week, soaking her for 30 minutes in warm water and highly diluted fertilizer. (Make it 2 weeks, in a non-desert climate.)

PS: This one's for you, dear Garden Faerie. A polka dot Phaleanopsis Moth Orchid could be a lovely dose of color while you're waiting on the baby Nasties to bloom. :))

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