Love this topic... kinda tied into one of those recent Sunday orchid chat. “Know when to stop”.... haha. 😑 I wish I do. In japan (originally from China) we say “the best advice alway hurts your ears”
I have grown other types of plants for more than 40 years, but always assumed it was too dry to grow orchids in Arizona. Then I purchased a phalaenopsis and started watching videos to learn. In just 3 months I now have about 40 - because I am fascinated with the variety and want to learn about the different types. Your advice to stop when it is becoming a chore is exactly what I needed to hear to keep it enjoyable. Thank you so much Roger!
Most of my weaker/sickly plants have been removed this year so down from around 250 to around 150. Watering is back to being enjoyable now and things like progress and blooms seem more frequent.
I completely get what you mean about a mistake being having too many orchids!! I "only" have 50! I love them all but when I get in from work, back aching, tired and fed up but need to water half of them... I don't love them quite so much lol. Knowing when to stop is great advice! I keep meaning to stop and then I see one more I like, then another sneaks in! I have to stop soon as I grow indoors and I'm running out of space... But its just that one more that is fatal and turns into 5 more 😭. Its a real addiction lol.
That was a really good speach. My first Bobo was i thought the crown on phalls. was for water! Od enough, i still have that old girl! My first orchid here, Phalaenopsis Pink Dancer, a strong big girl. I had her for 7 years.
I just wanted to say thank you for your insight!! We are planning our move for next summer and wanting a grow space is on my must have list. The ending helped me put some things in better perspectives about keep my collection in check. I have forty now the amount of time it take to maintain them now (especially when one works full time and the weekend is your only free time) has had me ask my self why a couple times. Thank you.
Good video, well done! Like the advice about keeping your fave orchids and understanding if your bloody climate even suits the one's you wanna go for! But a learning experience after all, all good fun!
I am loving the orchid hobby and every time I watch your videos I end up thinking what ones do I want and really need. So far I have not bought any orchids since the fall of 2019. Yes I have a wish list but I go over it all the time and think can I really grow this orchid in my environment. I know there are a couple to 3 orchids that I truly can say yes and I am going to get them at some point to put in my collection. I am a rather slow orchid picker before I get the ones I truly want. I also ask myself several times what will this orchid do for me in 5 yrs. That is will I still enjoy it or did I pick it up just cause. I have a goal that orchids need to be still liked and enjoyed in lets say 5 years. Then to me it is worth having that one. Have a great day.
Good video. I had the The Orchid buying fever for a while. I realized with working I don’t always have time to care for too many also my grow space is limited. Now if I do buy one I’m more picky and if I lose one of my weaker plants I don’t get as upset.
I always compare the enjoyment of an orchid with a bunch of live flowers. One lasts years - one lasts two weeks. So when I get rid of an orchid, I think of how long I've had it.
Yes, growing location is very important. I used to grow my one and only Den. phal. at the shady part of my room, it did very poorly, and worse still, the low humidity and a weakened plant altogether made an easy victim of spidermites. Early this year I cleaned the sick plant and placed it at the front of my windowsill growing place, it sent out a strong (well, comparatively speaking :D) new growth. And this morning when I got it out for watering, I discovered a flower spike. I am now hoping to have some Den. phal. blooms some weeks later :D
I hope I have got it finally right with my orchids and only needs a bit of tweaking. I didn't have growlight for the 2 first years. Now that I finally got my TDS meter as well, I have been able to feed proper amounts. First years I was too careful and that way my bulbs and canes became smaller each year. I really hope the next year will bring more blooms than just my noID Phalaenopsis. 🤞 It is so true with the media: I had to change my Vanda coerulea into moss to keep it hydrated. Though all sources recommend to use basket and large chunks of bark or similar. My humidity is only around 60-70%.
Great to hear about your orchid journey Roger. I have recently been bitten by the orchid bug. I blame TH-cam! I don't have a grow room and I'm growing them in the home in a spare bedroom - mainly Phals, Oncidiums, Cattleyas. Not looking forward to winter and managing air flow but shall see what happens.
On my brand spanking new Sharry Baby, I thought the flower spike was spent, so I cut it off. It turns out when I got another oncidium that had a flower spike, I realized that I cut off a perfectly good flower spike. I almost kicked myself really hard.
It's certainly a juggling act , also constantly learning. Still miss Oliver's unusual plants. I recognised too many of your mistakes but hopefully I've learnt from them. 🤞
"The easiest option is to have far less" Is that an option? I need to do a clean out next spring (again). Sitting at home during the cooties brought in a lot of plants.
Was just thinking about the work load this morning. I am relieved that we are going into the time of year that everything slows down. During the summer, I take my large Cattleyas and Tolumnias outside. So I was taking care of plants in two locations. The outside plants moved inside last week. I have been going through 6-10 gallons of R/O water every day. That unit is in the basement, which is reached by outside stairs. Yesterday was the first when I didn’t need to do that chore. Only needed 4 gallons today. Yeah!!! Now I would like to say goodbye to some plants, so I can have to space to try some new ones next year.
A good 'scheme' I've heard of is where a group of people who live quite close 'share' orchids - so someone with an orchid that doesn't do well for them can give it one of the others to try and things get swapped around.
My mistake was listening to too many videos scaring me of watering orchids, ha ha once i put them in wet sphagnum moss they started growing rapidly. Though i think that the reason they need a lot of water is because they are outside in full sun
Hello Roger nice informative video. I would like to know how long have you been growing orchids, and also what are your thoughts on semi or full water culture? Thank you and happy orchid growing 🥰
Learnt so much from this video Roger, thanks. I'd be interested to know how long it takes you to water a section from start to finish. Must be pretty time consuming.
The mounts take the longest as I do some but then have to wait for them to stop dripping before putting them back and doing some more. I can water the holey clay pots in 20 minutes - the rest of the pots take about an hour. The cooler ones take 10 minutes. It's rare that they all need doing together.
This is really interesting and helpful for me, as an 8 monther. Did your Ansellia africana ever flower? Do you still have it? I am wondering if I will know when to stop. 🙄😂
I'm just curious about an ideea: what about one or two solar panels for electricity used with heating will solve the problem of the bills? I'm thinking about this for few days... In my mind In a close future maybe I'll have my green house for my orchids...
The problem with solar energy is that the panels that can generate the mains power are expensive plus there is other equipment like regulators etc. It would take years to recover the costs. Those that generate 12 volts are cheap but that power won't run decent heaters/fans/hydrofoggers.
@@Camelutsza Not sure where you live but in Canada to get that kind of set-up it is still very expensive to even get it started for just a greenhouse I wanted to go that way too. But my husband is an electrician and he has researched both ways solar and electrical he has told me to save my money. I know other places in the world are cheaper for the initial cost of solar, but here where we live it's not worth the expense or at least at my age it isn't.
@@sandiesorchids9387 i live in Germany, at least a girl can dream, right? If I will win the lottery, it wouldn't be that expensive... Anyway, thank you for feedback
Here’s a mistake I made yesterday- dropped a young cattleya and broke the new cane in half 😔 I put cinnamon on the break, should I cut it right back, or leave the half cane? I’m so bummed out! 😭
Hello Roger, i am just wondering if sometimes it is also just about getting orchids used to circumstances. I grow orchids since 6-7 years, from Vanda and Cattleya to Oncidium, Gongora, Paphiopedalums, ... From seedling to old plants, from cooler to hot grower. Now i have around 90 orchids. Most of them in summertime live on my balkony, south-west, without any shading. Autumn to spring they live on windowsills, south-east and south-west. I never liked curtains, so i only adjust the amount of sun by their positions at the windows. Of course like everyone else i had to throw away some orchids. But most of them adjusted, and grow into such monsters that i nearly cannot see my windows anymore. Some had to struggle at the beginning, yes, but i might have started with good quality plants, so a strong plant, might adjust to nearly whatever? What really did not work was seramis. First few months were perfect, and then all went downhill, so i changed back to bark, some with a little moss. But except for that, high light with no shading, low humidity, mine really do well for unknown reason for a long time now. And in Germany, the weather is not so much different to UK. I work a lot so usually only have time during weekends to water. I always use Schwerters fertilizer and add some Calmag from time to time to my soft tab water, never checked PH or ppm. Please, anyone else, this does not mean ignore the general rules for orchids! I am not sure why mine do well, and most of what i am doing should just be wrong.
Yes of course. What i meant is how big a part does the quality of a plant effect success or failure with wrong conditions if the conditions cannot be changed.
TH-cam has changed a lot in the more recent years and the algorithms 'see' channels in a different way but the 'money' is still based on views where the ads get watched. They try and see things like 'engagement' and 'retention' which are not so easy to determine.
I would say your orchids certainly tie you down more than your cats! Anyone can come in and look after your cats for a week or two and they’d be fine - or you could take them to a boarding cattery. But your orchids? That’s quite a burden to place on someone else to come and water and check on them every day. I had to leave mine with my mother in charge at the beginning of last summer for just 4 days and I came back to some that were sitting in water like bog plants, even with precise instructions! It wasn’t enough time to do any damage - I can’t imagine leaving them for 2 weeks or something though! Disaster I’m sure! That’s where Phalaenopsis and Cattleya’s are especially nice I suppose - you can leave them quite a while without water. Whereas my Masdevallias and Miltoniopsis would keel over entirely if they weren’t watered for 2 weeks! The main mistake I’ve definitely made so far is watering too often. It’s one I rarely make now. Oh, and I have over-fed my Masdevallias - low strength but too often, so I got a few brown leaf tips. That root burn problem you describe is exactly what has happened with my Phalaenopsis - and a couple of Cattleyas with bare roots at the surface. I have just this month changed my fertiliser because I wasn’t happy with that one overall (took an age to dissolve and was uneven grains so I wasn’t sure I was getting a balanced feed anyway). Hopefully it solves that problem - not that the burned roots will ever be un-burned! Light is something I have to take seriously here in New Zealand, especially in summer because we get dangerously high UV levels on clear days. I looked up the UV Index and the average for your part of the UK in summer is 6-7 (which is about what a clear spring day is here), and in Majorca say, it’s 8-9 - but here the average in summer is 12-13 and anything above 11 is considered “extreme”. Fair skinned people burn in minutes here in summer, so I have to be extra careful with orchids! Sorry for the long comment - you got me thinking a lot with this chat!
Yes - the 'quality' of light is not often thought of. The air became very clean/clear when we were all 'locked down' and the traffic/planes stopped. The only time I've been away for years is when I stayed with Rachel in Ireland but even that was less than a week. Hannah stayed and looked after my orchids and cats.
Roger's Orchids Useful to have an orchid loving daughter to trust with your precious plants and cats! Many people are scared of orchids and think they will kill them easily so they’re a bit intimidated by “orchid-sitting”.
Love this topic... kinda tied into one of those recent Sunday orchid chat. “Know when to stop”.... haha. 😑 I wish I do. In japan (originally from China) we say “the best advice alway hurts your ears”
Plant s And other things I love that expression! 😎
Really nice chat!! Thanks Roger😊👍
You're welcome.
I have grown other types of plants for more than 40 years, but always assumed it was too dry to grow orchids in Arizona. Then I purchased a phalaenopsis and started watching videos to learn. In just 3 months I now have about 40 - because I am fascinated with the variety and want to learn about the different types. Your advice to stop when it is becoming a chore is exactly what I needed to hear to keep it enjoyable. Thank you so much Roger!
Most of my weaker/sickly plants have been removed this year so down from around 250 to around 150. Watering is back to being enjoyable now and things like progress and blooms seem more frequent.
I completely get what you mean about a mistake being having too many orchids!! I "only" have 50! I love them all but when I get in from work, back aching, tired and fed up but need to water half of them... I don't love them quite so much lol.
Knowing when to stop is great advice! I keep meaning to stop and then I see one more I like, then another sneaks in!
I have to stop soon as I grow indoors and I'm running out of space... But its just that one more that is fatal and turns into 5 more 😭. Its a real addiction lol.
The indoor space does eventually turns into 'where can I put some more shelving units'? And 'if I got some lights, I could use those dark corners'.
@@RogersOrchidsGardenandBonsai You've given me ideas now 🤣🤣🤣
Great topic! I really enjoyed it! And the trying to stop buying orchids is quite a challenge! 😂
Once all the 'good spaces' are taken up, places that are not so good get used and those plants don't grow as well. Time to stop?
That was a really good speach. My first Bobo was i thought the crown on phalls. was for water! Od enough, i still have that old girl! My first orchid here, Phalaenopsis Pink Dancer, a strong big girl. I had her for 7 years.
I just wanted to say thank you for your insight!! We are planning our move for next summer and wanting a grow space is on my must have list. The ending helped me put some things in better perspectives about keep my collection in check. I have forty now the amount of time it take to maintain them now (especially when one works full time and the weekend is your only free time) has had me ask my self why a couple times. Thank you.
Yes, unless you buy/sell orchids, then it's suppose to be an enjoyable hobby, not work.
Excellent and very thought provoking.
Thanks.
Lovely bunch. Great job!!🌸
Excellent video! Good tips and explanations! Just watching some of your older videos.💜
Thanks.
Awesome conversation I want to start building orchids into my indoor jungle
Thanks.
Hi Roger, I’m a new orchid grower, living in Florida. I’m loving your videos. Thank you for sharing your experience. It’s so helpful.
You're welcome.
Good video, well done! Like the advice about keeping your fave orchids and understanding if your bloody climate even suits the one's you wanna go for! But a learning experience after all, all good fun!
Thanks.
Micheal hit the nail on the head, Less Orchids is Less work!
Certainly is.
I am loving the orchid hobby and every time I watch your videos I end up thinking what ones do I want and really need. So far I have not bought any orchids since the fall of 2019. Yes I have a wish list but I go over it all the time and think can I really grow this orchid in my environment. I know there are a couple to 3 orchids that I truly can say yes and I am going to get them at some point to put in my collection. I am a rather slow orchid picker before I get the ones I truly want. I also ask myself several times what will this orchid do for me in 5 yrs. That is will I still enjoy it or did I pick it up just cause. I have a goal that orchids need to be still liked and enjoyed in lets say 5 years. Then to me it is worth having that one. Have a great day.
Getting orchids that fit the environment leads to happy orchids which leads to happy growers.
Good video. I had the The Orchid buying fever for a while. I realized with working I don’t always have time to care for too many also my grow space is limited. Now if I do buy one I’m more picky and if I lose one of my weaker plants I don’t get as upset.
I always compare the enjoyment of an orchid with a bunch of live flowers. One lasts years - one lasts two weeks. So when I get rid of an orchid, I think of how long I've had it.
Very interesting talk, thanks for sharing
You're welcome.
Yes, growing location is very important. I used to grow my one and only Den. phal. at the shady part of my room, it did very poorly, and worse still, the low humidity and a weakened plant altogether made an easy victim of spidermites. Early this year I cleaned the sick plant and placed it at the front of my windowsill growing place, it sent out a strong (well, comparatively speaking :D) new growth. And this morning when I got it out for watering, I discovered a flower spike. I am now hoping to have some Den. phal. blooms some weeks later :D
Sounds good.
Very good topic! Thanks!
You're welcome.
Thank you. I found this really informative. 👌
You're welcome.
Thanks For that advice.
You're welcome.
Thanks, Roger for the info that is carried on from my question on your FB site. Getting my greenhouse has been in the work for quite some time.
You're welcome.
I hope I have got it finally right with my orchids and only needs a bit of tweaking. I didn't have growlight for the 2 first years. Now that I finally got my TDS meter as well, I have been able to feed proper amounts. First years I was too careful and that way my bulbs and canes became smaller each year.
I really hope the next year will bring more blooms than just my noID Phalaenopsis. 🤞
It is so true with the media: I had to change my Vanda coerulea into moss to keep it hydrated. Though all sources recommend to use basket and large chunks of bark or similar. My humidity is only around 60-70%.
Miss Orchid Girl before I got my first Phal (😁) then your channel and we all know what happened next 🤣
Somehow, I just knew it would be my fault!
@@RogersOrchidsGardenandBonsai 😉
Great to hear about your orchid journey Roger. I have recently been bitten by the orchid bug. I blame TH-cam! I don't have a grow room and I'm growing them in the home in a spare bedroom - mainly Phals, Oncidiums, Cattleyas. Not looking forward to winter and managing air flow but shall see what happens.
On my brand spanking new Sharry Baby, I thought the flower spike was spent, so I cut it off. It turns out when I got another oncidium that had a flower spike, I realized that I cut off a perfectly good flower spike. I almost kicked myself really hard.
Seems we have alot in common !
Really liked the end too. Well said !
Thanks.
Great video as always from you!!
Very informative for rookies like me!!😊
Thanks.
I do so enjoy your waffling on.
Thanks.
It's certainly a juggling act , also constantly learning. Still miss Oliver's unusual plants. I recognised too many of your mistakes but hopefully I've learnt from them. 🤞
Some things that appear to be mistakes are just that the plant was not good when it was bought.
Your so right , to often we are sold duff plants!
"The easiest option is to have far less"
Is that an option? I need to do a clean out next spring (again). Sitting at home during the cooties brought in a lot of plants.
I bought 50. 🤩
I still like to 'see' the orchids I buy which greatly limits my choices as there have been no shows this year.
Roger’s Orchids, there are very few growers and hence hardly any sellers in Mumbai. There’s no choice, except getting them online.
Was just thinking about the work load this morning. I am relieved that we are going into the time of year that everything slows down.
During the summer, I take my large Cattleyas and Tolumnias outside. So I was taking care of plants in two locations. The outside plants moved inside last week. I have been going through 6-10 gallons of R/O water every day. That unit is in the basement, which is reached by outside stairs. Yesterday was the first when I didn’t need to do that chore. Only needed 4 gallons today. Yeah!!!
Now I would like to say goodbye to some plants, so I can have to space to try some new ones next year.
A good 'scheme' I've heard of is where a group of people who live quite close 'share' orchids - so someone with an orchid that doesn't do well for them can give it one of the others to try and things get swapped around.
Rozzers are quite busy, twice in one video 🤣
It's ambulances normally - the big A&E is less than a mile away.
My mistake was listening to too many videos scaring me of watering orchids, ha ha once i put them in wet sphagnum moss they started growing rapidly. Though i think that the reason they need a lot of water is because they are outside in full sun
Growing in wet moss in a cool climate would not be so good for many orchids.
Hello Roger nice informative video. I would like to know how long have you been growing orchids, and also what are your thoughts on semi or full water culture? Thank you and happy orchid growing 🥰
I've been growing 'seriously' for about 12 years but I've always had some orchids around the house - I even had one at college.
Learnt so much from this video Roger, thanks. I'd be interested to know how long it takes you to water a section from start to finish. Must be pretty time consuming.
The mounts take the longest as I do some but then have to wait for them to stop dripping before putting them back and doing some more. I can water the holey clay pots in 20 minutes - the rest of the pots take about an hour. The cooler ones take 10 minutes. It's rare that they all need doing together.
This is really interesting and helpful for me, as an 8 monther. Did your Ansellia africana ever flower? Do you still have it? I am wondering if I will know when to stop. 🙄😂
The Anselia went to someone else.
@@RogersOrchidsGardenandBonsai thanks. I have one so will just have to hope it flowers eventually.
I'm just curious about an ideea: what about one or two solar panels for electricity used with heating will solve the problem of the bills? I'm thinking about this for few days... In my mind In a close future maybe I'll have my green house for my orchids...
The problem with solar energy is that the panels that can generate the mains power are expensive plus there is other equipment like regulators etc. It would take years to recover the costs. Those that generate 12 volts are cheap but that power won't run decent heaters/fans/hydrofoggers.
Rogers right Solar isn't really what it's cracked to be.
@@sandiesorchids9387 my ideea was to create a self sustainable green Hause. I don't want it hooked to the Hause.
@@Camelutsza Not sure where you live but in Canada to get that kind of set-up it is still very expensive to even get it started for just a greenhouse I wanted to go that way too. But my husband is an electrician and he has researched both ways solar and electrical he has told me to save my money. I know other places in the world are cheaper for the initial cost of solar, but here where we live it's not worth the expense or at least at my age it isn't.
@@sandiesorchids9387 i live in Germany, at least a girl can dream, right? If I will win the lottery, it wouldn't be that expensive... Anyway, thank you for feedback
Here’s a mistake I made yesterday- dropped a young cattleya and broke the new cane in half 😔
I put cinnamon on the break, should I cut it right back, or leave the half cane? I’m so bummed out! 😭
I would leave it - a young plant will only have limited storage - every little helps.
Roger, as far as light up high in your grow room, how was the temperature up high and how that affected the orchids?
Thanks
The temperature doesn't vary that much due to the circulating fan(s).
Hello Roger, i am just wondering if sometimes it is also just about getting orchids used to circumstances. I grow orchids since 6-7 years, from Vanda and Cattleya to Oncidium, Gongora, Paphiopedalums, ... From seedling to old plants, from cooler to hot grower. Now i have around 90 orchids. Most of them in summertime live on my balkony, south-west, without any shading. Autumn to spring they live on windowsills, south-east and south-west. I never liked curtains, so i only adjust the amount of sun by their positions at the windows. Of course like everyone else i had to throw away some orchids. But most of them adjusted, and grow into such monsters that i nearly cannot see my windows anymore. Some had to struggle at the beginning, yes, but i might have started with good quality plants, so a strong plant, might adjust to nearly whatever?
What really did not work was seramis. First few months were perfect, and then all went downhill, so i changed back to bark, some with a little moss. But except for that, high light with no shading, low humidity, mine really do well for unknown reason for a long time now. And in Germany, the weather is not so much different to UK. I work a lot so usually only have time during weekends to water. I always use Schwerters fertilizer and add some Calmag from time to time to my soft tab water, never checked PH or ppm. Please, anyone else, this does not mean ignore the general rules for orchids! I am not sure why mine do well, and most of what i am doing should just be wrong.
There are many ways/places to grow orchids. Someone else's advice should never be taken as 'the only way'.
Yes of course. What i meant is how big a part does the quality of a plant effect success or failure with wrong conditions if the conditions cannot be changed.
Do you still have any of your original plants?
I lost my notes a while back and had to start over so I'm not sure.
60 subscribers needed for your big money break..:D
TH-cam has changed a lot in the more recent years and the algorithms 'see' channels in a different way but the 'money' is still based on views where the ads get watched. They try and see things like 'engagement' and 'retention' which are not so easy to determine.
You have two nelly islers
Looks like it.
You may want to check your carnivore plants
Several got knocked out of their pots and haven't recovered very well.
I would say your orchids certainly tie you down more than your cats! Anyone can come in and look after your cats for a week or two and they’d be fine - or you could take them to a boarding cattery. But your orchids? That’s quite a burden to place on someone else to come and water and check on them every day. I had to leave mine with my mother in charge at the beginning of last summer for just 4 days and I came back to some that were sitting in water like bog plants, even with precise instructions! It wasn’t enough time to do any damage - I can’t imagine leaving them for 2 weeks or something though! Disaster I’m sure! That’s where Phalaenopsis and Cattleya’s are especially nice I suppose - you can leave them quite a while without water. Whereas my Masdevallias and Miltoniopsis would keel over entirely if they weren’t watered for 2 weeks!
The main mistake I’ve definitely made so far is watering too often. It’s one I rarely make now.
Oh, and I have over-fed my Masdevallias - low strength but too often, so I got a few brown leaf tips.
That root burn problem you describe is exactly what has happened with my Phalaenopsis - and a couple of Cattleyas with bare roots at the surface. I have just this month changed my fertiliser because I wasn’t happy with that one overall (took an age to dissolve and was uneven grains so I wasn’t sure I was getting a balanced feed anyway). Hopefully it solves that problem - not that the burned roots will ever be un-burned!
Light is something I have to take seriously here in New Zealand, especially in summer because we get dangerously high UV levels on clear days. I looked up the UV Index and the average for your part of the UK in summer is 6-7 (which is about what a clear spring day is here), and in Majorca say, it’s 8-9 - but here the average in summer is 12-13 and anything above 11 is considered “extreme”. Fair skinned people burn in minutes here in summer, so I have to be extra careful with orchids!
Sorry for the long comment - you got me thinking a lot with this chat!
Yes - the 'quality' of light is not often thought of. The air became very clean/clear when we were all 'locked down' and the traffic/planes stopped. The only time I've been away for years is when I stayed with Rachel in Ireland but even that was less than a week. Hannah stayed and looked after my orchids and cats.
Roger's Orchids Useful to have an orchid loving daughter to trust with your precious plants and cats! Many people are scared of orchids and think they will kill them easily so they’re a bit intimidated by “orchid-sitting”.