Transplanting wild orchids
 

Bee orchids to be exact. I left a few bits of lawn for the cowslips -
and this has popped up next to one. On closer search I have at least 5,
and I'd like to have them together - I don't want the whole lawn to be a
wildflower meadow _all_ year!

Andy

Transplanting wild orchids
 

On 01/06/2014 20:53, Vir Campestris wrote:

Bee orchids to be exact. I left a few bits of lawn for the cowslips -
and this has popped up next to one. On closer search I have at least 5,
and I'd like to have them together - I don't want the whole lawn to be a
wildflower meadow _all_ year!

Andy

It is probably wiser to leave them where they have decided to grow.

They are so tetchy about exact conditions that the chances are you had
seedlings for a short while all over the place and you are now seeing
the ones that survived long enough to flower. They are non descript and
barely noticeable until they reach flowering size.

I am anxiously awaiting the local ones coming back into flower after
some radical street lamp improvements nearby on a fast junction.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

Transplanting wild orchids
 

"Vir Campestris" wrote

Bee orchids to be exact. I left a few bits of lawn for the cowslips - and
this has popped up next to one. On closer search I have at least 5, and I'd
like to have them together - I don't want the whole lawn to be a wildflower
meadow _all_ year!


The roots have a necessary relationship with a wild fungus so any
disturbance to the roots will disturb this and cause problems for the plant
(read death).
--
Regards. Bob Hobden.
Posted to this Newsgroup from the W of London, UK

Transplanting wild orchids
 

"Malcolm" wrote


Bob Hobden writes
"Vir Campestris" wrote

Bee orchids to be exact. I left a few bits of lawn for the cowslips - and
this has popped up next to one. On closer search I have at least 5, and
I'd like to have them together - I don't want the whole lawn to be a
wildflower meadow _all_ year!


The roots have a necessary relationship with a wild fungus so any
disturbance to the roots will disturb this and cause problems for the
plant (read death).

It can be done, but you've probably got to move perhaps a foot of soil all
round and beneath to make certain of getting the mycorrhiza, too.

I often have seedlings of Dactylorhiza orchids (I have some in pots) come up
in my Pleione orchid pots and when I repot them I use the old Pleione soil
to pot them up and they grow and flower in that with no problems. Every time
I then try to plant them out in the garden without disturbing the soil they
are in they die.
--
Regards. Bob Hobden.
Posted to this Newsgroup from the W of London, UK

Transplanting wild orchids
 

On Sun, 01 Jun 2014 20:53:24 +0100, Vir Campestris
wrote:

Bee orchids to be exact. I left a few bits of lawn for the cowslips -
and this has popped up next to one. On closer search I have at least 5,
and I'd like to have them together - I don't want the whole lawn to be a
wildflower meadow _all_ year!

We have both Common spotted and Pyramidal orchids in one of our
wildflower beds. Two of them were moved from an adjacent lawn (for the
same reason as you mention) and another from a pot of something else
growing in the pond margin. As the whole area was mixed woodland
prior to being developed the soil and growing conditions are identical
so they are doing well, although a badger dug the Pyramidal clump up
last year which seems to have upset it a bit.
--
rbel