Decisions

After the death of more than five orchids, my feeling was: “I give up. I am not ready to experience more losses.”

Then I remembered the secretary at Prague’s Casa de la Cultura Cubana. She told me something nobody had ever said to me before—or perhaps I simply had not paid attention: When you start something, you finish it. It doesn’t matter whether it is difficult or not. You finish it.

So I will keep at it. Not to finish, because this kind of hobby has no end, but to continue caring for orchids and learning from their difficulties, illnesses, and deaths. With that approach, I have reviewed everything I have learned from this experience: the things I did wrong, the things I failed to notice, and the few things I did right.

Orchid Cultivation Rules

These rules are based on the problems observed in my own collection and are meant to prevent the same failures from recurring.

• Know how the orchid will be shipped before buying it. The seller, carrier, packaging, transit time, and exposure to heat all matter. Avoid delivery methods that have already produced poor results. Shipping is part of cultivation because damage can begin before the orchid reaches home.
• Inspect every newly arrived orchid promptly. Do not judge the root system only by what is visible from above. Remove the pot when necessary and inspect the center of the root mass for tightly packed sphagnum, foam or sponge plugs, degraded media, rotting roots, or other hidden moisture traps.
• Remove inappropriate water-retentive material. Dense sphagnum, foam plugs, sponge cores, or compacted nursery material that remains continuously wet around the roots should be removed when they create a risk of poor aeration or rot.
• Repot for a reason, not automatically. Inspection is immediate; repotting should depend on what is found. Repot when the existing medium is unsuitable, decomposed, excessively water-retentive, contaminated, or otherwise dangerous to the roots. When possible, consider the normal repotting requirements and growth cycle of the particular orchid.
• Choose the medium for the orchid, the roots, and the environment. There is no single ideal orchid medium. Bark size and composition must be selected according to root thickness, species or genus, pot size, humidity, airflow, and drying conditions. Smaller particles do not necessarily provide better aeration; they can instead reduce the air spaces between particles and retain water longer.
• Pot according to the root system, not the size of the leaves or flowers. A large orchid does not necessarily need a large pot. Use the smallest pot that comfortably accommodates the functional root system and allows normal growth. Oversized pots contain more wet medium and may dry too slowly.
• Keep the structural base of the orchid above the medium. Do not mound bark around the plant simply to make it stand upright. In monopodial orchids such as Phalaenopsis, keep the crown and stem base exposed and do not bury the area where the upper roots emerge. In sympodial orchids, keep the rhizome and pseudobulb bases at or above the appropriate surface level.
• Stabilize the plant mechanically rather than by packing the medium tightly. A newly repotted orchid must not rock, wobble, tilt, or fall. Use stakes, clips, ties, wire, or other supports to hold the plant firmly while new roots become established. A flower-spike stake may also be secured to the perforated pot with a small tie if that stabilizes a large flowering plant. The support should hold the plant without crushing the pot, stem, roots, or spike.
• Do not allow the orchid to move within the pot. This is distinct from moving the pot from one location to another. Movement at the plant base can damage emerging root tips and prevent new roots from establishing themselves in the medium. Top-heavy orchids such as Brassavolas or flowering Phalaenopsis should be secured before they are allowed to stand unsupported.
• Choose the growing location deliberately. Position each orchid according to its own requirements for light, airflow, temperature, humidity, and protection from excessive sun or heat. Use actual observations of the terrace rather than assuming that all positions are equivalent.
• Once an orchid is placed appropriately, avoid repeatedly moving it. Plants acclimate to their local environment. Repeated changes in light, heat, humidity, and airflow make acclimation more difficult and also make it harder to determine whether a cultivation change is working. Move an orchid when there is a specific reason, not simply because another location appears temporarily preferable.
• Do not water by calendar. Water according to the actual moisture condition of the root zone and the requirements of the particular orchid. A fixed interval such as "every seven days" is not sufficient because drying rate changes with weather, pot size, medium, airflow, root activity, and plant condition.
• Judge moisture below the surface, not by the appearance of the top bark. Surface bark can look dry while the interior remains wet. Use a bamboo skewer, pot weight, visible roots where possible, and knowledge of the medium to determine when watering is actually needed.
• Use pot weight as an objective moisture measurement. Learn how each pot feels or weighs when freshly watered and after it approaches the appropriate degree of dryness. Recording wet and dry weights can make watering decisions more reproducible and reduce guesswork.
• When watering, water thoroughly rather than repeatedly. When the orchid has reached the proper dryness point, wet the medium thoroughly and allow water to run freely through the pot. Very dry fresh bark may occasionally benefit from a second brief wetting after a short interval, but routine double watering separated by 30–40 minutes is unnecessary.
• Do not underestimate how much water bark can retain. Bark may appear coarse and airy yet still absorb and hold substantial moisture, particularly after it has been wetted thoroughly. The apparent dryness of the surface does not indicate that the entire pot is dry.
• Drain completely after every watering. The orchid must be placed where water can escape immediately and freely. Do not leave the pot standing in runoff, pooled water, a wet saucer, or on a surface that prevents the lower holes from draining. Good watering requires equally good drainage.
• Do not defeat a ventilated pot by enclosing it. A perforated orchid pot is useful only if air can reach its openings. Avoid placing it tightly inside another pot, cachepot, or basket in a way that blocks airflow or traps drainage water. If the plant needs support, solve the mechanical problem separately.
• Expect some old roots to react after a major change in medium. Roots formed under one set of conditions may not respond perfectly to a very different medium. The decline of an old root after repotting does not automatically prove that the new setup is failing. Pay particular attention to whether healthy new roots begin to develop.
• Do not repeatedly disturb an orchid while it is recovering. Once a significant problem has been identified and corrected, resist the urge to keep unpotting, repositioning, rewatering, or otherwise changing the plant unless there is new evidence that intervention is necessary.
• After making a correction: observe. The proper sequence is:
  • Inspect → Correct → Stabilize → Place → Water according to evidence → Observe.
  • Make one necessary correction, give the orchid time to respond, and collect evidence before making another change.
• Treat every orchid as an individual biological system. "Orchid" is not a single set of cultivation requirements. Phalaenopsis, Brassavola, Oncidium, Cymbidium, Bulbophyllum, Vanilla, and other orchids differ substantially in their roots, growth habits, moisture requirements, light requirements, and preferred media. Cultivation decisions should therefore be based on the particular orchid rather than on a universal orchid-care formula.

Central Principle

The goal is not to keep an orchid constantly moist, constantly dry, constantly moving, or constantly being corrected. The goal is to provide the right root environment, stabilize the plant, and then allow it enough consistency and time to grow.