How does your Garden grow?

NeoDevin

I've been way too busy over the past couple months, and haven't been taking very good care of my orchids. I've pretty much neglected them completely, until I looked at them today and saw how poorly they were doing. Any advice on how to save them? See the attached photo, from left to right they are:
Paph. St. Swithin
Some variety of Phal that I got in the discount bin at home depot
Cattleya Aurantiaca 'Orange'

Since the photo I've removed the dead leaves, and watered them (the plants, not the dead leaves). What else should I do?

Thanks.

Attached Thumbnails

 

Astronuc

May Zz have mercy on your soul.

phosgene

My gardening is limited to a small herb garden (baby spinach, coriander, parsley and I've just planted some basil) and whatever can withstand rock-hard soil and scorching-hot summers. At the moment, this just equals parsley and leafless rocket. I suppose it would be a better idea to plant stuff in pots so that I can move them into shade..

NeoDevin

Nobody has any advice? Where is Zz when you need him?

Andre

Those don't look really bad. There is hope.

Make sure that there is not too much water, they hate wet feet especially in the resting period as they are in now. Let them drain a bit upsite down. And water only when totally dry.

Don't expect much flowering aspirations right now (if in the northern hemisphere). They know that the days are short and it's not a good time.

The plants will be forever grateful, if you replace the pots with transparant glass ones, as the green roots also love to do some photosynthesis. Moreover you can monitor the water balance that way. A little condense is all what you want to see.

Best substrate is tree bark chips and sphagnum combined.

My experience is that an easterly window works well, a little early sun is fine. Definitely not on the south.

Start with a little bit of fertilization after doomsday (21 Dec 2012) and the years thereafter of course.

Does that help?

Astronuc

http://www.beautifulorchids.com/orch...g/feeding.html

http://www.beautifulorchids.com/orch.../watering.html

http://www.beautifulorchids.com/orch...questions.html

http://justaddiceorchids.com/watering

http://myorchidcare.com/

Also see the American Orchid Society: http://aos.org/

All About Orchids = http://aos.org/Default.aspx?id=59

Evo

I am about to pick a dozen ripe tomatoes. Unfortunately there are still over 30 green tomatoes of varying sizes that will be lost

I had dozens of bell peppers that stunted after the weather got cold. Who wants a peanut sized bell pepper, I have dozens of them!

If the weather had cooled a month earlier, I could have had an awesome harvest, but the summer was just too hot at that critical time. Nothing would set until the weather cooled, then it was too late.

Eggplants never made it, a complete loss.

turbo

Gardening is over for the year. This morning, I took the tiller attachment off the tractor and parked the tractor in the garage. Sad times.

lisab

Perusing a seed catalog . True, winter has barely even started, but it's also true that the days are getting longer now!

turbo

My wife promised our little niece a spot of her own in next summer's garden, and when she has to babysit her next, she will take over a catalog from Johnny's so they can pick out seeds.

NeoDevin

I've been looking out for some clear glass pots for them, but haven't seen any. Would it be alright to replant them into clear glass mason jars?

ZapperZ

As usual, at this time of the year, my indoor orchids start to flower.

Freckles is usually the first one to get going, and she is in full bloom now.



The rest are a bit behind. 3 of Purple flowers have opened up, but she has plenty more buds to open.

Since last summer, I adopted a new orchid. My graduate student one day walked into my office and told me that he knew that I grow orchids and was wondering if I want another one. He showed me this rather small orchid plant (with 3 or 4 small leaves) in a rather tiny pot. He said that this was given to his wife when it had flowers. The flowers had been gone for a few months, and his wife thought the plant was dead and was about to dump it into the trash. He rescued it because he thought that the plant still looked healthy, and wanted to know if I would adopt it and save it from being dumped. So I did!

After transplanting it to a new pot and giving it a fresh orchid mix, it has been growing new leaves and growing quite well so far. And now, finally, it has put out a flowering stem



I have no idea what the flowers look like, but I really don't care. I'm just anxious to find out. I intend to snap a photo of it when it has bloomed fully, and send it to my student to show to his wife. :)

Zz.

Evo

Everytome I see orchids at the store, I am so tempted to buy one, but I don't really have a good sunny window where I live now.

Andre

That's actually ok, because orchids like the popular Phalaenopsis don't like direct sun.

Evo

Hmmm, I have a west facing window with a wall of trees in front, it really wouldn't get much light. I wonder how low is too low?

Borg

My wife keeps hers in a north facing window and they do very well. Of course if I was taking care of them, they wouldn't survive a month.

DiracPool

My gardening skills amount to letting the grass (and weeds) in my yards overgrow until it looks like South Vietnam and my neighbors start complaining...

At that point point, I'll typically tell them that I'm pioneering a movement to save the old-growth forest, hahaha.. They typically don't laugh at that joke, though.

In any case, that's the indication for me that spring has sprung and I'll pull the rusty old lawnmower out of the shed with the year old (definitely not Perennial) coagulated gasoline gelling at the bottom.

That will usually quiet the neighbors down for a while, but I gotta do the whole thing over again a month later. Geez. Repeat cycle 3 or 4 times each year and there you have it.

Oh yeah, every other year or so I'll hang a "topsy turvy" off some structure in the yard (for tomatoes). It actually works pretty well. I like the Russian purple tomatoes especially. However, the last batch I grew ended up tasting "grassy," so I haven't done it since. They've got some great farmers markets up where I live, so I typically get my fresh produce there, and let those guys do the work.