I don’t know how to say it any other way. The orchid roots have gone wild. Cattleya labiata is a good example. She has sent roots pretty much radially across her tree branch. I think if you accounted for the topography up there you could map her root growth pretty much like the outward aiming spokes of a wheel. Great way for her to explore, build territorial rights, and find sources of nutrition, light and water.
Pretty much the same time I noticed this crazy root behavior I observed several other things about labiata. She is glued solid into her tree. Rain and wind pose no challenge. It’s really like she’s “one” with the tree. She has successfully built a crypt of roots beneath her to store moisture and nutrients, and to invite geckos, ants, other insects, and countless microbes in that cool protected space. Cattleya labiata has also grown perceptibly. Her leaves have gotten wider, harder, and much longer. And she’s kind of hanging out of her perch. In search of more light? A random leaning? Time will tell.
Cattleya labiata is not the only one I noticed today. It seems that winter is past and we are experiencing mild days and moist, sometimes densely foggy mornings. If you were an epiphyte I don’t think you could ask for anything nicer. And so my orchids, bromeliads, tillandsias and epiphytic cacti have responded beautifully. Even noticed today an air plant whose leaf tips are becoming just the slight blush of purplish. Subtle yet eye popping!
When we lived in Cambridge Massachusetts I doted over my tiny garden. Just ten feet wide and barely thirty feet long. In winter it was bleak, empty above except for branches and stray leaves of the season before. A few bulbs would start in the spring, following the example of the early blooming witch hazel and my lusty trusty hellebores. By late June it was a solid green, eight or ten feet tall.
I used to ponder. That mass of green, those cubic yards of green developing over four months or so represented not only plant growth. It signified an explosion of bacteria that live in the plants, specifically mitochondria and photosynthetic chloroplasts. All of this had to be choreographed, regulated, and controlled in the plant body at the cellular level, and also in the collective plant community.
Here in St. Petersburg Florida in early February the dead of winter has passed. I noticed a lull in the plants. Two, actually. The fall into hibernation was slow and bumpy. I struggled for weeks figuring out when to water orchids that “should” have been sleeping. Now with the week or two of winter over, there were a couple of days of lag before the orchids woke up. Now I think they are fully present, recharged and ready to take off. They all seem to be growing every which way.
Pretty much the same time I noticed this crazy root behavior I observed several other things about labiata. She is glued solid into her tree. Rain and wind pose no challenge. It’s really like she’s “one” with the tree. She has successfully built a crypt of roots beneath her to store moisture and nutrients, and to invite geckos, ants, other insects, and countless microbes in that cool protected space. Cattleya labiata has also grown perceptibly. Her leaves have gotten wider, harder, and much longer. And she’s kind of hanging out of her perch. In search of more light? A random leaning? Time will tell.
Cattleya labiata is not the only one I noticed today. It seems that winter is past and we are experiencing mild days and moist, sometimes densely foggy mornings. If you were an epiphyte I don’t think you could ask for anything nicer. And so my orchids, bromeliads, tillandsias and epiphytic cacti have responded beautifully. Even noticed today an air plant whose leaf tips are becoming just the slight blush of purplish. Subtle yet eye popping!
When we lived in Cambridge Massachusetts I doted over my tiny garden. Just ten feet wide and barely thirty feet long. In winter it was bleak, empty above except for branches and stray leaves of the season before. A few bulbs would start in the spring, following the example of the early blooming witch hazel and my lusty trusty hellebores. By late June it was a solid green, eight or ten feet tall.
I used to ponder. That mass of green, those cubic yards of green developing over four months or so represented not only plant growth. It signified an explosion of bacteria that live in the plants, specifically mitochondria and photosynthetic chloroplasts. All of this had to be choreographed, regulated, and controlled in the plant body at the cellular level, and also in the collective plant community.
Here in St. Petersburg Florida in early February the dead of winter has passed. I noticed a lull in the plants. Two, actually. The fall into hibernation was slow and bumpy. I struggled for weeks figuring out when to water orchids that “should” have been sleeping. Now with the week or two of winter over, there were a couple of days of lag before the orchids woke up. Now I think they are fully present, recharged and ready to take off. They all seem to be growing every which way.
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