Or is it play? The young orchids in the trees are a demanding bunch. The days get longer. The afternoons get hotter. You know you have to do something to keep them going. We were at the beach at 7:30 this morning collecting seaweed for the garden and for my garbage pail full of smelly fertilizer water. The empty long beach at Ft. De Soto, the gentle crash of waves, the flight of hundreds of shore birds. Amazing. And the delicious feel and smell of the fresh seaweed. So many kinds. Delicate, pearl-like, fragrant and mixed with sand and tiny shells. We filled up a couple of big bags and bid the seashore a fond farewell for the day.
At home Janet took care of her raised beds and I tooled over to Yi Wen’s place to look after her garden. The orchids there have been more carefully placed now and some of them are in the most charming miniature landscapes with funny old containers and companion plants. It’s like an old fussy cartoon from Punch Magazine, all doo dahs and curlicues. A couple of heavenly smelling orchids, my mind always with a huge question mark above as I try to decipher the aromas. What do these scents do to pollinators I wonder. Guess I’ll have to go back for more tomorrow and maybe I can beg a little bit of the brown flowered one off her when she gets back. Watering her dozens of orchids is a decently big job. Spraying by hand, dragging her hose around the garden, and fishing out water from her containers. Don’t forget the potted plants and of course give the bird bath a good rinsing out. Could spend the whole day there. But...
Gotta get back to my place and take care of what needs tending. Using the smelly water for the bananas, who are seeming to want more and more these days besides they are still dripping from the morning dew. That moisture gives way in an instant to a searing hot heat. They need water to hit their roots before the stress sets in.
Then the dunking of willing slatted baskets of orchids into the smelly water. And the pouring on of smelly water into the ready pots of begonias and ferns in the shade garden. And don’t forget the little tiny soil dwelling jewel orchids that like their environment moist and rich. Then out into the sun to start misting.
Special attention today to the gesneriads I bought at the State Fair and snipped and gingerly planted with sphagnum in nooks and crannies and as companions to some of the orchids. They need attention to survive but they look like they are doing nicely after the early morning fog.
Yesterday the succulents were fed smelly water and I filled up the bromeliads’ tanks. Both the epiphyte bromeliads and the ones in the ground. They look strong and today they need no attention.
So it leaves just the orchids to be misted and misted and misted until they drip and then the water flows off them in a stream. This is how to teach them to grow and there’s no short cut. After you mist walk away but come back in five minutes with some more and then do it again. Mist until they flow and keep their surroundings moist and wet the wood they’re on and make it a stream, even though this means you’ll have to fill up the sprayer and pump it again and again and again and again.
It’s 1PM and the gardening is done. It’s a sort of hard work but janet rightly calls it my playground. I did it today with loud and crazy Tamil music in my earphones to keep me entertained beyond just the fun of the garden. A place of serious work but more a place of play.
At home Janet took care of her raised beds and I tooled over to Yi Wen’s place to look after her garden. The orchids there have been more carefully placed now and some of them are in the most charming miniature landscapes with funny old containers and companion plants. It’s like an old fussy cartoon from Punch Magazine, all doo dahs and curlicues. A couple of heavenly smelling orchids, my mind always with a huge question mark above as I try to decipher the aromas. What do these scents do to pollinators I wonder. Guess I’ll have to go back for more tomorrow and maybe I can beg a little bit of the brown flowered one off her when she gets back. Watering her dozens of orchids is a decently big job. Spraying by hand, dragging her hose around the garden, and fishing out water from her containers. Don’t forget the potted plants and of course give the bird bath a good rinsing out. Could spend the whole day there. But...
Gotta get back to my place and take care of what needs tending. Using the smelly water for the bananas, who are seeming to want more and more these days besides they are still dripping from the morning dew. That moisture gives way in an instant to a searing hot heat. They need water to hit their roots before the stress sets in.
Then the dunking of willing slatted baskets of orchids into the smelly water. And the pouring on of smelly water into the ready pots of begonias and ferns in the shade garden. And don’t forget the little tiny soil dwelling jewel orchids that like their environment moist and rich. Then out into the sun to start misting.
Special attention today to the gesneriads I bought at the State Fair and snipped and gingerly planted with sphagnum in nooks and crannies and as companions to some of the orchids. They need attention to survive but they look like they are doing nicely after the early morning fog.
Yesterday the succulents were fed smelly water and I filled up the bromeliads’ tanks. Both the epiphyte bromeliads and the ones in the ground. They look strong and today they need no attention.
So it leaves just the orchids to be misted and misted and misted until they drip and then the water flows off them in a stream. This is how to teach them to grow and there’s no short cut. After you mist walk away but come back in five minutes with some more and then do it again. Mist until they flow and keep their surroundings moist and wet the wood they’re on and make it a stream, even though this means you’ll have to fill up the sprayer and pump it again and again and again and again.
It’s 1PM and the gardening is done. It’s a sort of hard work but janet rightly calls it my playground. I did it today with loud and crazy Tamil music in my earphones to keep me entertained beyond just the fun of the garden. A place of serious work but more a place of play.
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