Kenni,
Very good point - I've been to South Florida, and believe me, us Northern
Californians are highly covetous of your ability to throw an orchid into a
tree and watch it thrive. *smile* But then again, you can't grow
Masdevallias in your back yard like we can here. =)
My green thumb reference wasn't as specific as it sounded, I think. I meant
green thumb in the broadest sense possible - meaning if you have a good
understanding of how to keep plants, not specifically houseplants, but
plants in general, alive, then you've got a green thumb. I agree that there
is a segment of plant lovers who have to be "reprogrammed" to take care of
epiphytes instead of terresterials, and those people usually kill a few
orchids before they get it. =)
-Eric in SF
"Kenni Judd" wrote in message
. ..
I suppose everyone has a different definition of "easy." And location
certainly plays a big role -- here in south Florida most warm-growers can
be
hung outside in a tree and Mother Nature will provide most of their care.
But my experience with the "green" vs. "black" thumb folks, when it comes
to
"houseplants," has been exactly the reverse of yours. I find that people
who are good with "dirt plants" tend to overwater, overfeed and overpot
their orchids. People like me, who tend to neglect such plants to death,
on
the other hand, usually take to orchids very easily.
Good growing,
--
Kenni Judd
Juno Beach Orchids
http://www.jborchids.com
"Eric Hunt" wrote in message
...
Kenni,
This is something that's bothered me since I started growing orchids.
In my opinion, orchids are not easy to grow, when compared with the rest
of
the houseplants most people grow.
People will only find orchids easy to grow if they have a strong
interest
in
them. If there is no intrinsic interest in orchids as a hobby, the
orchids
die very quickly. This is from personal experience with friends, across
all
age ranges.
It also helps to have a "green thumb" - i.e. being tuned into how to
take
care of a plant. When I go through the very basic steps necessary to
grow
a
Home Depot type pot-plant orchid, 99% of the people stop me after about
two
sentences and say "I'm sorry, I will never do ANY of that - I'll just
give
it to someone else when the blooms fall off"
For those people who don't want to be bothered to do more than water
once
a
month and be able to forget to water once in awhile, orchids are hard. I
recommend cactus and succulents for those people. =)
Even phalaenopsis will croak on you if you forget to water them two
weeks
in
a row in the summer, and oh, gosh, I thought putting them by that bright
window with 3 hours of afternoon sun would be good for them.
For those people with even the slightest interest in growing orchids and
other plants, today's hybrids are very easy and rewarding to grow.
However,
it's been my experience that most people want plants to magically start
blooming with wildly exotic blooms with only minimal of care and
thought.
-Eric in SF
"Kenni Judd" wrote in message
...
Ditto the write-up that AOBEI got in the Naples Daily News a few weeks
ago -- conventional wisdom says there's no such thing as bad
publicity,
but
the photographer chose a common dendrobium for the pic, and the quote
the
paper used was from a guy who liked orchids because he found them
"challenging" due to the amount of care required.
There were much more spectacular orchids on display, and I'm sure
there
HAD
to be 50 other people in the place [not including the vendors] who
could've
told the truth about how easy they are to grow ...
--
Kenni Judd
Juno Beach Orchids
http://www.jborchids.com
"Diana Kulaga" wrote in message
ink.net...
Janet,
Thanks for posting that. We get the NY Times every day, but they
missed
us
on Thursday, so I wasn't aware of the article. They do make orchids
sound
kind of hard to grow though, don't they?
Diana