Ten Questions About Orchid Care, an Essential Guide for Orchid Growers

Promoting Chinese orchid culture, spreading orchid knowledge

Question one: Am I beautiful?

Since ancient times, the Chinese have had a love for flowers deep in their bones, believing that flowers are beings with feelings, not only pleasing the senses but also stirring the emotions and giving voice to the heart. Loving beauty, loving flowers, seeing flowers as beauty, comparing oneself to flowers, believing flowers are the most beautiful things in the world. The Chinese understanding of and attachment to flowers is often gained from a profound awakening to life. The feeling of flowers is originally the feeling of people. In the eyes of the Chinese, among all flowers the most unique is the orchid. The orchid is one of the oldest flowers in our country; as early as the reign of Emperor Yao there were legends of growing orchids. The orchid has all three beauties of "fragrance," "flower" and "leaf," and also the four purities of "pure qi," "pure color," "pure spirit" and "pure charm." All flowers are beautiful, yet only the orchid, this wisp of subtle fragrance from a deep valley, has made generations of Chinese sages utterly enchanted, living up to the name "King of Fragrance"! I have a captivating delicate fragrance, and blossoms blooming one after another, some simple, some bold, some dainty and elegant, smiling sweetly and brightly in the beauty of life. May I ask you orchid growers, am I beautiful?

Question two: Do you love me?

In the eyes of the Chinese, the orchid is rich yet not arrogant, preserving antiquity and leaving fragrance, foremost among the reclusive; unstained though it grows in mud, and not withered through the cold of years. Its pure, upright and vigorous beauty is beyond even the lotus. It truly deserves to be called the true gentleman among flowers! The Chinese seem always to be continuing the story of their love for the orchid. Writers and poets of past dynasties, with their own unique ways, laid bare their deepest love for the orchid, piling up all the most ornate words and the most stunning colors amid a profusion of blooms. Nearly every one of my plants condenses an emotion, holds a story, and displays the noble virtues and precious integrity passed down through a thousand years. May I ask you orchid growers, do you love me?

Question three: Am I valuable?

Everyone says I am expensive, ranging from a few yuan to tens of millions of yuan. In the orchid-producing areas I grow in great patches all over the mountains, yet I am still listed as a protected species. Human greed has made me both a plaything and a commodity, dug up recklessly by people, and the most hateful are those who do not even spare our children and grandchildren. I wish I could hack them to pieces and cut off their line of descendants. There is another kind of person who sets out with dry rations for breakfast, trekking very, very far through the great mountains, only coming down when the sun is about to set; sometimes after covering all the surrounding mountain forests they still go out to even more distant places to look for hope. When setting out they all think they can bring back something decent and valuable from the mountain that day. Day after day, year after year, they are still as tireless as if injected with chicken blood, yet generally they gain nothing and still never tire of it. I do not hate this kind of person; at least he still has a bit of conscience. What I hate is another kind of person, who sells us back and forth, keeping the valuable ones and casually discarding the worthless ones, letting us turn to soil; and in trading they scheme and deceive, flatter and fawn, cheat each other and hurt each other, passing us from left hand to right hand, eyes lighting up at the sight of money. There are also yin-yang contracts, and no taxes paid, and in the end I am the one made to take the blame. May I ask you orchid growers, am I valuable? Truly so valuable? Worth all this from you?

Question four: Am I easy to grow?

I like a humid and cool climate, and I like to breathe fresh air. I do not much like sunlight, nor do I like too much water. Too much sunlight will scorch my leaves, and too much water will make me rot. I am just this picky, needing to be tended carefully. May I ask you orchid growers, am I easy to grow?

Question five: Do I cost money?

Maniacs are buying, maniacs are selling, and still other maniacs are waiting. Prices casually run to hundreds of thousands or millions. People will buy orchids even if they have to go without food or drink. Three years on the orchid forums, a million in silver flakes. If you do not take good care of me, I will die just to spite you; when one dies they buy more, when they buy more one dies, over and over again. Skill gets higher and higher, taste gets higher and higher, and the orchids bought get more and more expensive. Transaction receipts pile up drawer after drawer, and they still borrow money everywhere to buy, take out loans to buy, mortgage things to buy, buy in partnerships. All these feelings they alone understand, and still they take delight in it. A heart that is never satisfied is like a snake trying to swallow an elephant. May I ask you orchid growers, is it I who costs money?

Question six: Am I delicate?

Old bamboo is vigorous and upright, new bamboo is lovely and graceful. Orchid grass sprouts and grows from cracks in the rocks, keeping company with the green bamboo beside the stones. Fresh and free from vulgarity, with less of a stubborn, rigid feel and a bit more of rocky charm, the stones too become lovely things, full of life! I like to grow in clumps, in groups and groups, as if several little companions had agreed to stay together forever. And like a mischievous child, I like to hide in dark places and play hide-and-seek with people; seeing that people cannot find me, I hide in the clump and giggle secretly. May I ask you orchid growers, am I delicate?

Question seven: Can I reproduce?

People carry out tissue-culture propagation of us, and frequent division propagation. Is it that I cannot reproduce enough? One is not enough, they want two, and even want a whole litter. They desperately give me food and drink, make my living quarters far more luxurious than their own, use all kinds of advanced instruments and equipment, and even drug me, bringing all eighteen martial arts to bear, exhausting every means to make me reproduce more. You should know there are millions of children and grandchildren inside my fruit. May I ask you orchid growers, can I reproduce or can I not?

Question eight: Am I schizophrenic?

Tissue-culture seedlings, hybrid seedlings, hormone seedlings, greenhouse seedlings, re-imported grass, tech grass, medicinal-water grass, wild-collected grass, mountain-planted grass, old varieties, new varieties, new-old varieties. You have made up so many names for me that I cannot even tell who I am anymore. Is it that I am schizophrenic?

Question nine: Can you stop messing me around?

When I want to breathe a little fresh air, you insist on sealing me up tight; when I do not want to drink water, you desperately pour it into me; when I want to drink water, I am so thirsty I am dizzy; when I do not want sun, you give me deadly sun; when I want sun, I am freezing cold; you desperately fertilize me and spray me with medicine, and still want me to grow well so you can admire me and smell my fragrance. Do you think that is possible? Can you stop messing me around like this? Do you also want a beating?

Question ten: Can you never leave me?

The beauty of the orchid is understood only by the Chinese! In the eyes of the Chinese, the orchid is a spirit, an art, and even more a sentiment and a realm. It is a cultural symbol rooted in the long history of the Chinese nation, giving off a romantic, subtle fragrance! In fact, I am like all the flowers in the world, just an ordinary blossom; it is only that people have endowed me with human emotions. Without the heightening of emotion, even the most beautiful flower in the world would lose its luster. May I ask you orchid growers, can you never leave me? Author: Mei Fei, founder of the Orchid Bar forum, secretary of the Orchid Association of Jingshan City, Hubei Province, and an internet celebrity in the orchid industry on major self-media platforms!

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