Simple Orchid Growing Method for Home, Learn It Easily in a Few Steps

      Orchids are very elegant indoor ornamental plants, especially Chinese orchids (Cymbidium goeringii, Cymbidium ensifolium, Cymbidium tortisepalum, Cymbidium faberi and other terrestrial orchids), whose captivating fragrance when in bloom has long been admired by the ancients; they also fear exposure to strong sunlight, making them a very typical indoor green plant. The orchid culture formed over thousands of years has influenced the flower-appreciation aesthetics of some neighboring countries (such as Japan and South Korea). In the past decade or so, with the gradual improvement of living standards in our country and the improvement of indoor living environments, people's demand for displaying Chinese orchids indoors has also greatly increased; however, when orchids are mentioned, everyone thinks they are very difficult to keep alive, so the problem of orchids being difficult to grow has also hindered orchids from further entering more households.
      Are orchids (I mean Chinese orchids, the same below) really so difficult to grow? According to my personal experience, orchids are among the easiest plants of all to cultivate; as long as you mainly master root aeration, ensure moisture, and provide a certain degree of light, they can be grown alive.
•     Here I introduce a very simple method that guarantees your orchids a 100% survival rate, with relatively casual management (mainly watering management), very suitable for ordinary indoor households (it actually works poorly in large-scale orchid farms).
     To grow orchids well, choosing the growing medium is the most critical thing; when you choose the growing medium, you also determine whether the orchid seedlings will survive in the future. Because the main growth requirements of orchids are: first, aeration; second, water retention; third, nutrition; fourth, suitable light. Aeration and water retention are the most difficult techniques to master in orchid growing (in the orchid-growing world there is a saying that watering takes ten years of practice). Orchids have fleshy roots and need good aeration; water is a necessary condition for the growth of all plants, yet the two are contradictory opposites. Too much water will squeeze the air out of the growing medium, making the roots unable to breathe and die; no water is even worse, as any plant will die. Therefore, it is very important to find a growing medium that is both aerated and water-retentive, and in which the amount of watering and the length of watering intervals have little effect on orchids. Generally, as long as the amount and interval of watering are well controlled, ordinary growing media can let orchids grow very well; however, there are four seasons in a year and there are north and south in the country, and temperature changes make the amount and interval of watering very difficult to control, causing many people's orchids to either drown or die of thirst; of course, more drown than die of thirst. Therefore, a good growing medium is one in which more or less watering, and longer or shorter watering intervals, have little effect on orchids.
     I introduce one growing medium that has this characteristic, namely moss (sphagnum moss, green moss, etc.), as shown in the picture: 

This is a pot of wild-collected Cymbidium tortisepalum grown in moss for 3 months. Judging from the leaves, the growth is still quite normal. Now let's see how the roots are. Lift up the surface moss, as shown in the picture:

The roots are growing well, and new roots are sprouting vigorously. Take it out of the pot and see how the lower part of the roots is! 

 The roots below are also growing perfectly. How about it, this method is pretty good, right!

     Sphagnum moss is a kind of bryophyte belonging to the Sphagnaceae family, also known as peat moss. It can be divided into coarse-leaved peat moss and fine-leaved peat moss. Generally speaking, it grows in humid areas or swamps of tropical and subtropical mountainous regions at relatively high altitudes above 800 m. Its length is generally about 8cm-30cm. Its pH value is generally between 5-6. Sphagnum moss is very soft in texture and extremely strong in water absorption; its water absorption is equivalent to 15---20 times its own weight, and it has very good special effects such as water retention, fertilizer retention, and aeration. Therefore, sphagnum moss can create good cultivation conditions for higher indoor flowering plants, and is widely used in the cultivation of various tropical orchids, being the main growing medium for growing tropical orchids. Taiwan, China is an important producing area of tropical orchids in the world, and every year it imports large amounts of sphagnum moss from abroad as a growing medium for tropical orchids.
    Since sphagnum moss has the characteristics of excellent aeration and strong water retention, using it to grow Chinese orchids is in principle very good. For this reason I actually cultivated with sphagnum moss; I have more than a dozen pots of orchids and it has been almost 2 years, with very satisfactory results. Please look at the examples:

   This is a pot of Jinsi Mawei (Cymbidium ensifolium) 

Taking it out of the pot is very convenient, right? You can check the root growth at any time. Take it out of the pot and look at the roots 

Below is a pot of Cymbidium ensifolium 'Da He Su' 

Below is Dendrobium grown in moss, growing very well 

The main advantages of using moss as a growing medium are:
    1. The growing medium is relatively easy to obtain. If it is available locally, you can collect it locally; if not, you can buy it at the market or online. The price is not expensive, and as an orchid growing medium, the quality difference is not great; as long as it is natural and not artificially dyed, it is fine.
    2. Potting is very simple. Prepare a suitable flower pot, place some foam blocks at the bottom of the pot to increase aeration, then use relatively loose sphagnum moss to wrap the roots well and put them into the pot, then fill the pot surface with sphagnum moss. When it looks attractive and appropriate, the planting process is complete.
    3. Watering management is very casual. After planting, you can water it; you can water it every day, or once a week; any amount of water is fine. Excess water will flow out on its own and will not accumulate, so it is relatively easy to manage.
    4. Clean, tidy, and lightweight. If what you buy is relatively pure sphagnum moss, it carries almost no soil. Rinse it with water before use and it is very clean. It will not bring soil out of the pot when watering. Also, a pot with orchids planted in it is very light, so it can be moved and placed at will.
    5. You can lift the sphagnum moss on the pot surface at any time to check root growth, which is good for observation.
    6. If you water relatively frequently and the humidity is relatively high, the fresh sphagnum moss laid on the pot surface can generally survive. The emerald green sphagnum moss set off against the upright orchids will add a lot of color to the pot of orchids.
    Regarding light and fertilization, it is the same as orchids grown in other growing media, but it is best to use compound fertilizer, which is clean, convenient, and will not produce odors or pollute the environment. Use a compound fertilizer with 15% each of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, diluted with water at one part per thousand; apply once a month and it is enough. You can also lift the sphagnum moss on the pot surface, sprinkle an appropriate amount (no more than 1 gram) of compound fertilizer granules near the roots, then cover it back with sphagnum moss, water it, and let it slowly dissolve and be absorbed.
     Special point: because sphagnum moss is very loose and has relatively large gaps, over time the sphagnum moss in the lower part of the pot will become humified, and the orchid roots below will have nothing to attach to, which will affect the lower roots' absorption of nutrients, and the pot surface will show some sinking (you can feel it by gently pressing the sphagnum moss on the pot surface with your hand). Therefore, after half a year, you need to add sphagnum moss below around the roots. It is very convenient: support the pot surface with your palm (with the orchid seedlings properly held between your fingers), turn the pot upside down, hold the outer side of the orchid pot with the other hand, gently try to pull it out; when you feel the growing medium loosen from the pot, set the orchid pot upright, lift gently, and the entire growing medium will come out of the pot completely in one piece. Check the roots, fill the large gaps below the roots with fresh sphagnum moss (an appropriate amount), and then you can put it back into the pot in its original position. It has almost no effect on the roots, and you can immediately carry out normal placement and management (note: during the operation, do not destroy the integrity formed by the sphagnum moss and the roots).
    It sounds very complicated, but it is very simple to do. If the needed things are prepared, growing a pot of orchids in sphagnum moss takes only about 2 minutes; it is truly done in minutes.
    After reading this post, are you a little tempted? Hurry up and take action!
    I do not know whether the whole introduction is comprehensive. If you have any questions, you can leave a message and we can discuss them together.
    The process of growing orchids is more interesting than appreciating orchids. The feeling of fishing should be much better than eating fish, right!