What type of soil is best for planting wild orchids
This article introduces the best soil for planting wild orchids and the special soil for orchid cultivation in the field of green plants and flowers. The editor will introduce the following contents to netizens.
Are you still worried about what kind of soil to use for growing orchids? Have you ever encountered the dilemma of difficult cultivation of young orchid seedlings?
Actually, these problems are often encountered in the early stages of orchid cultivation, but you haven't learned how to cultivate orchids more simply and have always regarded orchids as a fragile pot plant.
In fact, it's not that difficult to plant orchids. Many friends who have succeeded in growing orchids have been encountered by the Good Photographer Farmer, and they mostly use local materials to prepare planting materials. Some use weathered stones from the mountain, which are small stone particles that have fallen off from large stones after years of weathering, and the specific gravity of these stone particles is not too large. Others use broken bricks or tree bark as planting materials. But they all pay attention to one ingredient, which is humus soil.
What kind of soil is considered humus soil?
Friends who have searched for wild orchids must know that orchids do not grow on barren mountains. There are no orchids on mountains with only small shrubs, and even if there is one or two orchids, they are not good seedlings and will not bloom well.
Only orchids under broad-leaved forests are seedlings with green leaves and strong roots, which is because there is rich humus soil under the broad-leaved forests. Every autumn, broad-leaved forests shed leaves, and these leaves gradually decompose after years of sunlight and rain.
This is the first step in the formation of humus soil. Some orchid enthusiasts make their own humus soil and think that they have decomposed leaves, but actually, they are far from real humus soil.
Decayed leaves cover the soil, making the area under the leaves moist and insulating during winter. Therefore, some mountain insects like to hide under them, especially small insects like earthworms that dislike light. These detritivorous insects continuously feed on decayed leaves and soil, and then excrete feces with certain fertilizer effects.
Through their long-term efforts, the physical and chemical properties of the soil and decayed leaves are changed, which forms real humus soil. This process usually takes several years to complete. The characteristics of humus soil are loose, soft, and fertile.
What are the uses of humus soil?
In rural areas, humus soil is called "fertile soil," and people have long known about its fertilizer effects and have used it accordingly. In spring, when raising vegetable seedlings, some fertile soil is often taken from the mountain as a seedbed, which not only has a high seedling emergence rate but also promotes good growth of vegetable seedlings. This is because humus soil has its own fertilizer, and this kind of fertility does not harm the seedlings, which is completely different from artificial fertilizers.
The Good Photographer Farmer collected samples of humus soil from various mountains and measured their pH values, which were mostly between 6.0 and 6.5. This slightly acidic soil is suitable for the growth of many kinds of flowers. The Good Photographer Farmer used this humus soil to grow honeysuckle and azaleas, and practice has proven that they have a higher survival rate and root development rate than other soils.
What are the disadvantages of humus soil? How to solve them?
Everything has its pros and cons, and humus soil is no exception. Since this kind of fertile soil is formed by the digestion of insects, there will definitely be many insect eggs in the soil, which also include pests. Therefore, the biggest disadvantage of humus soil is the potential risk of pests.
After the Good Photographer Farmer collects humus soil for planting orchids, it will undergo a series of treatments before being used as planting material. The simplest and most effective method is sunning, as the sun is always the best disinfectant and insecticide.
The specific method is to spread the freshly collected humus soil on the cement ground, spray insecticides such as cypermethrin and imidacloprid, flip the humus soil while spraying to ensure even distribution of the insecticide, then pack it in sealed plastic bags, tie the bag mouth tightly, and place it on the cement ground for sunning. Generally, it can be used for planting flowers after about half a month.
What type of soil is best for planting wild orchids
How to choose the best humus soil?
Seeing this, some orchid enthusiasts might say, "Isn't it easy? Just dig it on the mountain." But is it really that simple? Of course not. First of all, the humus soil we use for planting orchids is different from that of other flowers because the root growth of orchids is inseparable from symbiotic fungi, and only the humus soil where orchids grow is rich in such fungi. Humus soil from other places may be able to grow orchids, but their growth during the adaptation period will definitely not be as good as that in their native habitat, which is because of the symbiotic fungi.
Now that you know what kind of mountain to choose humus soil from, do you know where on this mountain the soil is the best? Slopes have an inclination, and every time it rains, you will find that there is always a place where "four waters return to the bright hall." Simply put, most of the rainwater on the mountain will flow to this place, carrying a lot of humus with it. As this rainwater flows, it dissolves the nutrients in the humus layer it passes through, so when it converges, it is actually "fertile water."
The place that is constantly gathering fertile water will naturally have a higher nutrient content in the soil than other slopes. This place is usually the bend of the mountain, where two slopes meet a bay, not only does the humus layer here become thicker, but the soil fertility is also higher. The humus soil we use to plant orchids comes from here, which is also what the Good Photographer Farmer often says about the skill of digging humus soil.
The fertility mentioned here is not only the three major fertilizer elements of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium but also includes various trace elements, which are all exuded and then washed out by rain over a long time. Therefore, this is also the fundamental difference between artificially made leaf mold soil (which we call leaf mold soil) and natural humus soil.
How to use humus soil for planting orchids?
After the humus soil is collected and has undergone the process of killing insect eggs, do you still need to disinfect it? The Good Photographer Farmer believes it is not necessary. Although humus soil contains a variety of bacteria, most of the time, the microorganisms in the soil are mutually restrictive and balanced. Conversely, soil that has been overly disinfected is not necessarily good, just as our human living environment is a multi-bacterial space.
Orchids are the same. In the process of constantly resisting harmful bacteria, the resistance of orchid plants will gradually increase. For example, orchid seedlings grown in high-tech orchid nurseries need a period of acclimatization before entering the ordinary planting environment, which is a process of adapting from an aseptic (or less bacterial) space to a conventional space. Orchids that have not gone through this acclimatization process are difficult to survive because they have not been trained to fight against bacteria.
Although humus soil is good, in the limited space of an orchid pot over time, it can easily become compacted, as the pot space is different from the wild. Therefore, using humus soil to plant orchids must be combined with other materials to prevent compaction and promote breathability and drainage.
In summary: commonly used ingredients include bark, brick particles, weathered stones, etc., just as mentioned at the beginning of this article, orchid enthusiasts can use various materials to plant orchids, but the combination with humus soil is indispensable.
Above (Green Plant Enthusiast Network) has introduced the full content of "What type of soil is best for planting wild orchids" and "Special soil for orchid cultivation." I hope it can help you, and at the same time, I hope everyone will visit the Green Plant Enthusiast Network more often to see more green plant and flower experience and common sense!