How to Raise Orchids: Tips and Tricks
Today, the editor will explain the content of the orchid family in detail, how to raise orchids - tips and tricks, and then take everyone to understand together.
Many novice orchid growers do not know how to raise orchids. Some experienced orchid lovers have summarized the tips and tricks of raising orchids in three articles, summarizing the key points of raising orchids from different perspectives, which is very suitable for novice orchid lovers.
“No plagiarism, purely for self-study, thank you for seeking orchids and the little smart orchid garden”.
I. General Discussion
If orchids grow poorly, it must be due to problems with the environment, planting methods, and management. Therefore, it is necessary to understand the nature of orchids and find problems to improve.
Wei Chang has the following correlations for the light, water, fertilizer, and planting materials related to orchids:
Often hear orchid friends complain that the roots grow poorly, attributing the reasons to planting materials, fertilizers, and watering. In fact, the root cause is still the lack of understanding of the nature of orchids. If you want good roots, light cannot be lacking. Light is the driving force for root development. The stronger the light, the more water vaporization on the leaf surface, the more nutrients consumed, and the more it promotes root development to increase the amount of water and fertilizer absorption.
This is like people. When the exercise is large, the amount of food and water is also large. As long as the nutrition keeps up, it is difficult not to be strong after eating and drinking enough. If a person stays in the office all day, blows air conditioning, uses a car to get around, and does not exercise, then even though he eats delicious food, he will have many problems with a big body. On the contrary, if you only know to do heavy physical labor and activities with large exercise, but the nutritional conditions have not kept up, you can't eat full and drink enough, and it is also difficult to have a strong body.
Everything in the world, once connected, all things are connected, balance is the king. Understand this principle, and it is not difficult to find the most suitable management method for your own environment. If your fertilizer is too fertile, then increase the light appropriately; if the planting material is too fine and has strong water retention, then also increase the light appropriately; on the contrary, if the planting material is coarse and light, please appropriately reduce the light, and the water (G-Y) can be slightly less. If the planting material is coarse and the environmental light is strong, it is necessary to increase the amount of fertilizer and water to avoid the leaves of the orchid grass becoming thin and yellow due to excessive consumption……In nature, the same plant species have fewer shade roots and more sunny roots, which is almost an ironclad rule. Don't believe it? Find a piece of lawn to observe. Even if you cultivate orchid grass with soil from the field, those who understand the principle can still grow it well. The planting material is readily available, and the key is management.
After reading the above information several times, you will find where your orchid-raising problems lie. My orchid-raising environment is on the balcony, adopting an open and non-humidified method. Under the strong light and high temperature environment, the transpiration of orchids is very vigorous. Although the bottom of the cup is left with 1.5 cm of water and fully watered at dusk, hoping to replenish the lost water of orchids, the growth of orchids is still slow, and the buds cannot grow fully. In terms of fertilizer, it has been increased, but the growth of orchids is still very slow, indicating that the water supplement for orchids is insufficient. Therefore, under sunny conditions (temperature above 33 degrees), now water 2-3 times a day, and the growth of new buds after changing the watering method becomes faster, and new roots also grow continuously, indicating that the management method of watering is correct. Therefore, watering and fertilizer should be decided according to the needs of orchids, and how to see the needs of orchids, this is mainly to observe the growth of orchids with the eyes and make a comprehensive judgment.
It is necessary to identify the differences in the environment and adopt different planting and management methods. In fact, orchids are very dead things. As long as the conditions for survival and growth are met, orchids are easy to raise. If the above conditions cannot be met, orchids will not grow, bloom, or become sick and die. Therefore, the environment is different, and the planting and management methods are different. The following are two examples:
1. Planting materials and methods. Wang Lichang often talks about the use of orchid materials to be loose, breathable, and water-loving, so that orchid roots can grow well. Inside the environment, maintain 85% humidity and the flow of air in the space, leading the exhaust gas in the pot out, with the above conditions, orchid roots grow white and grow very well. However, in the open space of the balcony, due to the lack of humidification or water wall cooling, if the material is also loose, breathable, and water-loving, in the high temperature and dry air of the balcony, it is very easy to enter the pot, causing the orchid roots to be steamed and damaged, resulting in root rot, and the orchid cannot be raised naturally.
2. Use of fertilizer. Wang mentioned using 5000 times the dilution of Huabao to water, but when I use the above method to fertilize, I often find that the tips, middle veins, centers, and edges of the buds of the leaves will have brown fertilizer damage in the summer, because in the environment without humidification, the fertilizer is affected by sunlight, temperature, and wind, causing the fertilizer to concentrate and cause fertilizer damage. Of course, Wang mentioned that it is best to fertilize at 1-3 in the early morning, when the temperature is the lowest in the day and the humidity is relatively high. Watering again before the sun comes out can avoid fertilizer damage, but getting up in the middle of the night to fertilize is too tiring. Think about it, with 85% humidity and a temperature below 28 degrees in Wang's place, when will I have such conditions on my open balcony? I think only after a summer thunderstorm or a typhoon, when the humidity in the air is high and the temperature is low, I quickly fertilize, and then wash the leaves again with water before the temperature rises the next day. With this method, the orchid leaves no longer show signs of fertilizer damage. As for spring and autumn, when the highest temperature in a day is below 29 degrees, I fertilize half an hour after watering in the morning when the sun comes out.
Learning the successful experience of others in raising orchids requires a comprehensive understanding and should not be learned one-sidedly. Since everyone's environment is different, therefore, the methods of planting and managing orchids are also different. Therefore, to learn the successful experience of others in raising orchids, one should have a comprehensive understanding of the orchid-raising environment, species, pots, planting materials, watering, pest control, and sterilization……and then use their own orchid-raising experience to improve the methods of planting and managing orchids. For example, when I saw Zhu Dayong's planting materials and methods, I had great doubts. It must be root rot to plant orchids in my balcony with such materials, because in the past 10 years of experience, many organic materials have been tried, and without spraying pesticides and sterilizing, it is impossible to overcome the problem of root rot. Therefore, in the end, I had to use planting stones and absorbent cotton to plant. However, Zhu's roots are well-raised, which indicates some unseen blind spots. Later, Zhu announced the processing method of planting materials, and then I realized that my understanding of the processing of organic materials was not enough and needed to be strengthened. The processing method of planting orchid treasure materials is as follows:
1. The fairy soil I bought is only sent to me after the seller finds a suitable soil layer.
2. The planting stone must be soaked for more than half a month, and the water must be changed twice in between.
3. The bark must be thick, sieved, and soaked for half a month, with the water changed once in between.
4. Rinse and dry to semi-dry, put it in a plastic bag, and expose it to the sun for half a month.
5. The most critical point is that, especially when using plastic pots, do not use very round particles as the bottom, which is easy to block the round holes tightly and cause poor drainage. The selected material should have more water retention than planting stones.
6. Only in this way can the planting material in the pot dry and wet synchronously. It is rare to find such material. I have consulted many orchid friends, and they almost never have such material in their cities. You can think about it yourself, haha……
7. This material does not cost money to buy, but it takes a lot of effort to process. It needs to be soaked for more than a month, and the water needs to be changed multiple times. I originally wanted to sell some planting materials to make money, but when I really started doing it, it was not what I thought. It was too繁琐了, this is the main reason that it cannot be mass-produced.
My understanding of the production process of planting orchid treasure:
1. The planting stone must be soaked in water for more than half a month, and the water must be changed twice in between. This is to wash away the dust, make it fully absorb water, eliminate the fire, if used directly, the large particles of planting stone are not easy to absorb water, and it will be more difficult to wet when watering in the future.
2. The bark must be thick, sieved, and soaked in water for half a month, with the water changed once in between. This is to wash away the dust of the bark and soak out the organic matter in the bark to avoid high-temperature damage to the orchid roots due to fermentation later. Soaking the bark in water can also kill the pests and eggs in the bark.
3. Rinse and dry to semi-dry, put it in a plastic bag, and expose it to the sun for half a month. This is to use the heat generated by the sun to thoroughly kill pests and bacteria, and allow the material to ferment, which is a good method.
4. The fifth point is the most critical, especially when using plastic pots, do not use very round particles as the bottom, which is easy to block the round holes tightly, causing poor drainage. The bottom material must have more water retention than planting stones, which is really important. The bottom of the pot uses the most absorbent material, so the bottom of the pot is the wettest. Because the roots have the property of seeking moisture, the roots will go to the bottom of the pot, and even if the surface of the pot is dry, the bottom of the pot is still not dry, so the roots of orchids will not be damaged due to dryness, and the growth condition of the crystal part will also be better.
The treatment of organic materials requires rich experience to determine whether the material is fully fermented. If the material is not fully fermented, when exposed to a high-temperature and high-humidity environment, bacteria will accelerate the decomposition and generate high heat, causing damage to the orchid roots and causing root rot. Therefore, after the organic material is processed, it is necessary to look at whether the environment is dry or humid to match the appropriate proportion of inorganic materials. Of course, after planting, it is also necessary to look at the growth condition of orchids to adjust the materials for planting orchids next year. Therefore, learning the planting experience of others, if only