4 key rules for orchid-growing beginners: growing orchids well is not as simple as reading a book

As material living standards in our country keep rising, more and more people are joining the ranks of orchid growers. This has helped boost the development of the Chinese orchid cause. However, while this stream of "fresh blood" experiences the pleasure that orchid growing brings, they will more or less take detours. I myself walked this path step by step. Here I hope, through my own understanding, to describe one by one in detail some of the problems that many beginners encounter. Where I fall short, I hope the broad community of orchid friends will correct me.

1. Going from ordinary orchids to named-variety seedlings must be a gradual process.

This first point is truly a well-worn topic, yet it is the reason many people stumble. Why? The reason is simple: orchid prices have generally risen over the past two years, and many people, harboring the idea of quick success and instant benefit, rashly "enter the market" before they have even figured out the ropes. How could those lacking experience not lose out! For friends just starting out with orchids, this rule is the most important. Ordinary orchids are cheap and good quality, making them an excellent helper for accumulating experience. Everyone knows that growing orchids well is not a matter of one day or one night, and in the process of exploring, one inevitably has to "pay tuition." So why should we spend big money to buy those precious varieties? Paying such "tuition" would be truly unjust! It will also invisibly add pressure on you. But ordinary orchids are different: if they die it does not matter, the key is to find the cause and treat the root problem, striving not to make the same mistake next time. I think everyone knows this reasoning; what matters is how you carry it out in a down-to-earth way.

2. Ordinary orchids and named-variety seedlings should be treated differently

Everyone knows ordinary orchids propagate quickly and have strong disease resistance; named-variety seedlings are comparatively much weaker. Orchid friends with even a little experience will surely have felt this: in summer, under the same care environment, it is always those "aristocrats" that get sick, while the "run-of-the-mill goods" always come through fine; in poorly ventilated places, ordinary orchids can hold on for a long time, but named-variety seedlings will show you their displeasure within two or three days; likewise with watering, named-variety seedlings still get root rot no matter how careful you are, while ordinary orchids will be fine no matter how you water them. Although they all belong to the same family and genus, they cannot be cared for in the same way. This is shown not only in disease resistance but also in other aspects, including light, water and fertilizer.

3. Do not gamble on orchids lightly, and do not chase new flowers

Nowadays one can often see in various media that a certain wild-collected orchid is worth tens of thousands, or that a certain new flower someone selected is priceless. Many people, harboring the idea of getting rich overnight, throw away large sums to buy gamble orchids and new flowers that might produce good blooms. But for inexperienced beginners, one must never act rashly. This is because the orchid itself is a plant with strong variability. Its growing environment (including light, temperature, humidity, soil, etc.) will all affect how it blooms. This is also why a wild-collected orchid that might produce a good flower must bloom again for several consecutive years before its value can be confirmed. Obviously, selecting such a "potential stock" requires deep judgment. Moreover, these "branded" gamble orchids and new flowers are often very expensive, and if when they rebloom they are not the flower you had idealised, the cost is huge! We can give the most obvious example: spring orchids from Sichuan are famous for their rich flower colors, but many people find after introducing them that the rich, varied colors are lost bit by bit as time goes on. This is caused by the environment. This example warns us: even if the new flower before your eyes is certainly not a fake, you still must not act rashly. For experts with rich "hands-on" experience, when they take a fancy to a plant they will first pay part of the money and wait to see how it reblooms after a few years before deciding to go ahead; of course, the price will then be several tenths higher than the original. Also, many orchid vendors now pass off ordinary orchids as wild-collected new flowers, and the price is not high either. The methods of fakery are indeed quite clever: dragon roots, various leaf arts and so on have reached the peak of perfection. So beginners had best not get involved in this area at first. To sum it up in one sentence: the orchid market has risks, and one must be cautious when entering it.

4. Several kinds of orchids not to choose

1. Re-exported orchids: orchids originally from our country that flowed into other regions, were raised there through a whole set of modern cultivation methods, and then flowed back into China. Such orchids all grow in constant-temperature, constant-humidity, sterile orchid rooms. And most growers will also spray various hormones. Once they leave such an environment, they easily become "unaccustomed to the local climate." It is not a small number that collapse or get sick; failure to sprout and failure to bloom are also very common. Although the price is quite a bit cheaper, for beginners I still do not recommend buying them.

2. Tissue-cultured seedlings: simply put, "clones." Some varieties have now been successfully cloned in China, but very, very few people actually grow tissue-cultured seedlings to the point of flowering. Such seedlings grow in even harsher environments and have even higher environmental requirements. To identify tissue-cultured seedlings, we only need to look at their roots: if the roots are as thin as instant noodles, then they are tissue-cultured seedlings.

3. Small orchids: their advantage is their low price, but insufficient nutrients of their own, poor growth vigor and weak disease resistance are their "fatal weakness." Small orchids often take 3-5 years to regain vigor, whereas relatively speaking strong seedlings have sufficient nutrient supply, strong growth, a high sprouting rate, and can bloom in the same year. So one should choose strong seedlings without hesitation.

4. Others: for example, single-plant orchids, hormone-treated seedlings and famous varieties sold on street stalls, we should not buy any of them.

It is said that "understanding orchid growing takes a single hint, but mastering watering takes three years of skill." If you want to grow orchids well, it is not as simple as reading a few books. Sum up from failure, experience through growth, and choosing what suits you is what is best.

This article comes from an original submission by Yumi Orchids; for reprinting, please contact the Yumi Orchids public account!