Italian Fall and Orchid's Care

Hi,
Happy Fall to you!
Italy was wonderful.  Rome was bustling and enjoyable as any major city but the jewel was our Umbrian home.  We toured daily and returned to our home late afternoon to enjoy the day's most recent wine purchases on the beautiful patio overlooking the hills of Umbria.  Whats not to love?   I think vacations out of our wonderful country really increase the appreciation of everything American upon the return.  There is nothing like coming home and our country,  even with all of its challenges, is very special.

I have been hearing from alot of you about the state of your orchids and what to do with them.
Those in the North have brought the orchids inside for sure now.  When I was in NJ, I let mine winter on cookie sheets with pebbles thinly spread out and the pots on top of the pebbles with water beneath to create moisture.  This became most important from Jan through March.  Of course, checking for white fly and other bugs is a continual thing up North in the winter.  Hopefully, the Phalenopsis have set their buds by the cool weather you have already experienced..whether you left them outside or left  a window nearby open for them- they need that cool, even here in Florida to set the bud to eventually bloom.  You should be enjoying a late winter's bloom if it all went as planned- don't be afraid to use a little bloom booster. However, your fertilizer schedule is much less than what is below for those in Florida.

Those of us here in Florida are quite spoiled when it comes to our preparation to get the orchids to bloom.  They have spent the entire summer outside enjoying the humidity and frequent downpours nature had to offer.  Now that we have cooled off, our Phalenopsis are setting their blooms and I am starting their bloom booster, 1/2 strength,  3-4 x month.  Sounds like alot, but really all of the care I give them,  is this time of year and if I miss a week, its not as though they are not going to bloom.  If I did nothing, they would just bloom later in the season.
I am treating the orchids I attached to my palm trees(by panty hose) as well.  I cup my hands under the roots and try to moisten them.  Most of them have attached themselves to the trees after our wet summer.  Attached to the tree or in a pot, they all like  a little libation to make them become something special.

While I was fertilizing this weekend, I came upon a very long, thin, textured thing behind some shrubs.  I quickly decided it was a snakeskin!  My husband has repeatedly offered to have me take a look the ones  he finds in the garden...no thanks.   Apparently,  they like to find a tight, shrubbish area so they can disrobe, so to speak, and move on.  Creepy!   That is the one advantage I can find to living in a high rise- no snakes!

"A weed is merely a plant whose virtues have yet to be discovered"  Ralph Waldo Emerson

Until next time...Christi