It was a victim almost before it got to this garden. Janet found it at a huge tent sale in Sarasota, just when we were starting with the garden. Victor was visiting so the whole scene must have been disarming to him. It was October but it was plenty hot. She threw this giant of an orchid into our cart just as we were about to leave. A sight it was indeed. We checked out and that afternoon I tried to get everyone sorted and into place. It was a little hectic. Maybe Victor was napping after all the fuss, driving through Bradenton and him seeing the Tropicana sign. It was all a bit much.
Not knowing a thing, not a thing! I kind of tossed the Vanda up into a sunny branchlet. Immediately she fell down like some gawky limp giant spider and I let her lay where she landed. Decidedly upside down.
I’ve written before about the question “is there a right side up?” perhaps arrogantly. Because for some orchids, in some conditions it seems like there is definitely a right side up. I had tortured my non-science major students at Boston University with the concept of no rightside up for any molecules we studied and for sure, there was not, no matter how faithfully they were depicted in the idiotic textbooks. But did this matter to my pupils? I think not a bit. They needed to get through this required course please, the less critique of science the better. Sigh.
So I kind of imposed the no right side up on this poor Vanda which, no big surprise, went from being an orchid to an upside down palm tree post haste. Poor thing lost a couple of leaves a day for a good week until I stopped spraying and misting and decided to let it be. And interesting. Once I let it be it stopped dying. But it didn’t do anything else either. Just stood still with the underside of its bottom leaves achieving a sort of homeostasis of sunburn, protecting some barely hidden core of the plant.
There it hung from October until now, mid February, when the Vanda showed some signs, of not of ruddy good health, at least of life. A stormy night and a cool rainy morning finally gave way to a gray afternoon and I decided to try to right my wrong. Went out in a short ladder and gently placed her back in the crook of the tree where I had had high hopes for her. Placed her gently, carefully, perhaps respectfully in a spot where I hope she can survive and even thrive.
Did the sane today for three cryptanthus, one of the few obligate terrestrial bromeliads, which I had stubbornly put in slatted baskets. Yes they grew pups and flowered but they weren’t a pretty sight. Why not give them a chance in my shade garden, in the ground where they belong?
Also moved my orchid Bulbophyllum grandiflora. It was on a branch of sea grape but hadn’t attached itself. It had generously thrown two growing shoots from its base in a pretty shaded spot of the garden and suddenly lost one of them. Time to make a change I decided. I moved her to a basket that I can dunk in my seaweed mixture and put her in a slightly sunnier spot next to her cousin Bulbophyllum fascinator, who seems to be enjoying life immensely in her corner of the orchid grotto. Who can blame her?
Need to follow own advice. Observe carefully. Not stick to “rules.” Experience. Experiment. Have some fun. Good thing it’s still cool and we have a chance to make these changes.
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