Before watering orchids, you must first understand their growth habits

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Among the many categories of crops cultivated by farmers, their water requirements differ enormously depending on the type. Peanuts, flax, bok choy... cannot withstand 24 hours of soaking without the whole plot developing root rot and dying; water chestnuts, rice, and narcissus must be submerged in water to grow, bloom, and reproduce. They are all plants, yet their water consumption and tolerance for soaking differ extremely depending on the category.

Understanding the habits of each crop and giving it the right amount of water is a major key to cultivating crops, and it is also the key to a bumper harvest versus a poor one. The same applies to watering when growing orchids. Therefore, to grow orchids well, we must understand the habits of orchids, and remember clearly that orchid roots are the orchid's respiratory organs. Constant excessive waterlogging blocks the root's stomata with water; in mild cases this causes difficulty in breathing, and in severe cases complete suffocation. Everyone knows that difficulty in breathing is a pathological state, and complete suffocation is a cause of death. "Fond of moisture but fearful of wetness," "fond of dryness but fearful of aridity" are the comments ancient predecessors made about the habits of orchids, and they are apt and fitting.

The so-called "wet," "moist," "dry," and "arid" are expressions of how much water is contained in an object or space, that is, in the orchid pot or orchid room. "Arid" means a prolonged excessive lack of water, which will cause the orchid to develop poorly and be prone to disease. "Wet" means too much water, which has the drawback of causing excessive stretching of growth or suffocation of orchid roots.

Between "dry" and "moist" lies the condition of moderate water content. From the meaning of the ancient sayings recorded above, we can know that "dry" accompanied by "moist" is the condition orchids love; it is the most ideal state for orchid growth, reproduction, and blooming. This state should not only apply inside the pot, but should include the entire surrounding environment outside the pot as well. Moreover, within the 24 hours of the whole day, the longer this state that orchids love can be maintained, the more vigorous the orchid's growth function will be. This is what we aim for in our watering practices.

However, orchids are nourished by water. Without watering for a long time, they will inevitably become too dry; once watered, they seem too wet; and using only misting over time makes the pot accumulate filth and become unhygienic. What should be done? Besides adopting a planting method with faster drainage, the author, during seasons of severe cold and heat when the air is dry, still waters as usual even when the orchid pot is too waterlogged to be suitable for watering.

How to water? Pour a large amount of water over the floor of the orchid room and orchid shed, as well as the surrounding walls inside the room, from top to bottom. Do not water the orchids but water the surrounding environment. It seems like a watering method of letting the water flow by itself, but it can be used to increase the moisture and humidity of the space in the orchid room. This method neither soaks and damages the orchid roots, but also keeps the entire environment, over a long period, from being too dry or too wet, maintaining "dry" accompanied by "moist," the most ideal state for orchid growth and reproduction. It is a method that kills two birds with one stone.

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