"Jangchub" wrote in message
news
On Fri, 23 Nov 2007 22:16:29 -0500, Phoon Hencman
wrote:


[snip]

it depends on what
kind of orchids you have and there is an entire library in every
imaginable form on the Internet. I recommend you visit on of the
thousands of websites which give explicit instruction on growing
orchids. They are very easy to grow if you have all the right
conditions.

Or -- Orchid care is overstated. Don't obsess over the "right"
conditions -- orchids are incredibly easy to grow and VERY forgiving,
especially in Florida or Hawaii. You just go out and buy some inexpensive
orchids and give them some water/orchid fertilizer mix every once in a
while. When I see one that I like (both price and color) I'll buy it, stick
it in with the others I've bought in a shelter I've made, and
water/fertilize them whenever it occurs to me. After four years I've got an
oncidium that's 3' around with flower stalks 5' long, a garden full of
epidendrum radicans "ground cover", a vanda terrete that's 10' tall growing
in a Royal Poinciana, a couple of Cattleyas that flower twice a year that
I've tied into the trunk of Australian tree ferns, some Cymbiums that have
naturalized in the ground, and others. The Phaleonopsis ("Moth Orchids")
don't seem to like this routine -- probably too much water during our rainy
summers. My solution -- I don't buy them any more.

Orchids here take a lot less care than roses or most other landscape plants.
It's only when you decide you want the perfect blooms or want to do some
hybridizing or you decide to make it a really serious hobby that it starts
to take up your time, so start with cheap and easy, keep them out of the
cold and don't let them get direct sun. They'll tell you what they need
after that.