Growing Orchids for Three Years: A Look Back at My Orchid Cultivation Journey

Promoting Chinese orchid culture and spreading orchid knowledge

Calming my mind, I look back at my orchid-growing journey, which has been exactly three years so far.

Over these three years, I started out buying from local markets, then turned to buying online, and later just hung around online. During this time, I bought plenty of overpriced plants that sellers hyped up, from wild-collected spring cymbidiums and cymbidiums at 30 or 50 yuan per seedling locally to nameless pure-hearted varieties and slightly shaped common orchids online. Anyway, I paid plenty in tuition fees. Leaving everything else aside, if the orchids I bought back then were still around, not a single seedling would be worth even 10 yuan now, haha. After three years, I've finally gone from a complete novice who knew nothing (back then I didn't think so, haha!) to a half-new, half-old so-called veteran who can keep orchids alive, make them strong, and get them to bloom. The best proof is that the 80 to 100 pots of orchids I currently have are still alive and well, and they're grown in a pure growing medium produced in Northeast China. These past two years, they've also bloomed quite a bit for me.

Over these three years, I've gotten into fights, cursed at people, thrown bricks, and exposed sock puppets, causing quite a bit of chaos online. I remember my posts got deleted back then too, and to this day no one has told me why. Now it's fine, though. My posts basically never get deleted anymore, and I think that's mainly because I don't talk or post much. When I do occasionally post, it's just to show a few flowers! I remember the questions I asked in my posts back then, and they seem laughable to me now.

When I first got online, I could say whatever I wanted, since no one would notice you no matter what you said. But later it was different. What's more, if you talk too much, someone will come along and take it personally. As the saying goes, the speaker has no such intent, but the listener takes it to heart, bringing unnecessary trouble on yourself. If you talk too little and just joke around, some will say you're irresponsible. It's truly a dilemma. Looking back, maybe that's why so many veterans don't speak either. I come online less and say less. Sometimes I just quote another orchid grower's reply, which counts as popping up for a bubble, and then I sink back down.

Over these three years, I've also felt that online talents emerge in waves, and newcomers keep joining this team. What's more, the vast majority of newcomers are repeating my early orchid-growing journey: buy today, haul it home tomorrow, repot the day after, and argue with the seller the day after that, fighting until the sky goes dark. Some people quit right after getting started because of this. Those who can make it through and stay are what you'd call "orchid addicts"!

Here I'd also advise new orchid friends: look more and buy less. Once money is spent, it's gone, and there are plenty of orchids online. Look more and say less. Read old posts, look at photos and descriptions of old varieties, read veterans' orchid-growing insights, and check out the bad sellers mentioned in old posts. The internet is a big classroom where you can find almost any material. Put in a bit more effort, and a year from now, your thinking may be different from what it is now. Three years from now, you may understand what I'm saying now.

I'm not some veteran. I just thought that since I've already been growing orchids for three years, I'd pop up for a bubble and say a few words.

Orchid Bar, your good teacher on the road of growing orchids