h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

One subject the article didn't cover: growing in the home. I do realize, however, that it would be pretty much futile to attempt to cover the multitude of topics in one article.

But, there are *thousands* of orchid species that can be grown in the home, many of them simply on a window ledge, and it's a lot easier than most people would have you imagine.

Hey Guthwine,

Your idea is excellent - how about writing us an entry on how to propogate entries at home and submit it to peer review? I for one would love to know how to do it.

Be a , you know you want to.

How to propagate entries in your own home? Isn't that what we're doing already?

Heh heh.

I might just do that, though... that is, once I finish the two other entries I promised myself I'd work on but haven't gotten very far on. Yeah.

Güthwinë.

(this is the article's author)

This is an excellent point. Although it is very difficult for the home-grower or hobbyist to propagate orchids from seed, growing orchids in the home is very accessible to anyone who can keep ordinary, sensitive houseplants alive (I've heard it said that the difficulty of raising orchids is about on par with an african violet, though for different reasons). What can be a bigger challenge is getting them to bloom... to the degree that there are actually orchid "spas" where they will pamper your orchid and give it the right conditions until it sets a spike (the structure flowers propagate from). However, anyone with a green thumb who is willing to experiment with humidity, adjusted day and night temperatures, light intensity and daylength can acheive this at home.

I'd say african violets are more difficult, but that's my personal experience. It just depends on what conditions you can give them. It basically comes down to reading a lot, and selecting a plant from the thousands of choices which will thrive in the conditions you can offer.

A hearty hi to all of you!

The three hybrid-orchids I've got ("Phalaenopsis 'Pandora' is one of them called) seem to be the only plants which survive with me. I absolutely have no green thumb - more the oppisite - but they do great. At the moment all of them are in full bloom.

Oh, and I have one question for you, since all of you seem to know a lot about orchids. What do I do with the roots? They're growing and growing...

Methos

Rejoice, Methos, bloody well rejoice. If they start to crawl out of their pots, take them out and clean all of the old medium off before repotting in another, larger pot. Are all of yours phals?