Orchid Seminar - March 13, 2021

I'm going to start with one simple question, and we're going to go through numbers.

How many orchids do you have?

One to twenty?

Raise your hands.

As I go up in numbers, drop your hands, but raise them up.

One to twenty?

Twenty to forty?

Keep them up.

If you're up at forty, keep them up.

Forty to eighty?

One, two, three, four.

Eighty to a hundred?

They're both Orchid Society members.

Okay.

All right.

A hundred to a hundred and twenty?

Hundred and eighty?

Wow, girl, you've really gone up.

You've got to catch up.

I've got six hundred at home.

I'm running out of room.

Actually, I'm out of room.

All right.

With that in mind, my job is to educate you and get you where you have two hundred orchids.

Every one of you, I hope, walks out of here with an orchid today.

Orchids are really interesting.

Most people know that they grow on every continent, but what?

Antarctica.

It's the only continent on this planet that does not grow orchids.

Okay? Obviously, they can't because it's frozen solid.

There is an orchid for every climate, every amount of sun, to cold weather, to snow.

I've seen orchids with snow on them.

So you can grow an orchid just about anywhere.

It doesn't matter if you've got shade, bright indirect shade, you've got partial sun, or you've got full sun.

There is an orchid that you can grow wherever you're at.

Okay? Who knows the difference?

And you, Orchid Society members, keep your mouth shut, because I know you know the answers to some of these questions.

Who knows what epiphytic is?

All right.

Epiphytic means that they grow attached to things.

All right.

Who knows what parasitic means?

Parasitic means that it actually is attached to something, and it is taking nutrients from that item.

It's like a tick with a dog.

A tick climbs onto a dog, and a tick is sucking the blood.

Orchids are not parasitic.

They are epiphytic.

All they are using the items for is to hold onto to survive.

Most orchids are typically epiphytic.

There are some ground species that actually do grow in the soil.

Most of them are either mounted on bark, or on a tree, or on rocks.

We have seen at the Orchid Society, we've had a couple of speakers come in that have done presentations in South America where we've seen orchids growing on bare rock faces, where there are indents, where all the detritus, and sand, and dust, and stuff

settles down in that little hole, and the orchid will grow in that section out in full sunlight.

Now, how many of you grow Phalaenopsis? How many of you know what a Phalaenopsis is?

Phalaenopsis is the moth orchid.

That's what these guys are.

These are probably the most common throwaway plant now that you will buy.

It has replaced the poinsettia as the number one selling potted plant in the world.

Not just the country, but the world.

They are growing so many of them and mass producing them.

It used to be that you would have a name tag with each one of them.

Now they're just growing them for you to put on your coffee table, or kitchen table.

Enjoy them while they're going, and then once they're done, a lot of people will either throw them away, give them away, or they'll try to re-bloom them.

My goal with you guys is to get you to keep them, regrow them, and then bloom them out again.

These are not throwaways, unless you get one of those blue dyed ones at Home Depot.

They're throwaways.

That blue dyed orchid is going to be white next year.

There's debate on that, whether or not it does or not.

We're not sure whether or not that dye chokes up the veining or arteries in the plant.

We're not 100% positive that those plants will live long term.

They may live for a couple of years, but nobody's ever done a study on it at this point.

Many of the serious orchid growers treat them like the plague, but you have to remember that they're a novelty, like the dyed carnations in high school.

It's a novelty.

If you like the colors, go ahead and buy it.

It's not going to be that color next year.

It might be a little tinged to that color, but it's not going to be that color next year.

What they do is they actually put a hole in the flower spike while the flowers are all in bud.

As the flowers open up, there's a little ampule that they clamp onto that hole, and it's clamped onto the flower spike.

As the flowers start to open up, it draws that dye into it, and it dyes the flowers.

How many of you water with ice cubes?

Raise your hands nice and high.

Don't do that.

If I catch you using ice cubes, I'm going to use ice cubes on you.

Let's talk about that little trick about ice cubes.

What temperature does ice melt at? 32 degrees.

Do you like 32 degrees?

I don't.

These are tropical plants.

They don't like cold water like that.

When you're putting it on the root system, you're going to really make it unhappy.

The water with ice was done as a gimmick by a company up north somewhere.

Please don't do that.

It just sets them back.

This orchid does not like temperatures below 50 degrees.

You're now putting 32 degree water on it.

It doesn't make any sense.

If you're going to water these, put them in the kitchen sink, fill up the pot with water, let it sit there for five minutes, then go back through, put water in it, fill it up again and let it rest.

That's the way you water these guys inside the house.

Do not sit there and take them outside and spray the whole thing, especially if they're white flowers.

What happens with that is you get little black dots on the flowers.

How many of you have seen white Phalaenopsis with little black pencil dots on them?

That's a fungus.

That's from getting the flowers wet when you water them.

I'm going to cover that.

I'm going to tell you how to water these guys first off and easily.

They're very easy to grow.

They don't take a lot of light requirements.

They will live indoors and do just fine.

Indoors in air conditioning, put it in the kitchen sink once a week, fill it up with water, check the moss with your finger to make sure it's wet.

I'm going to pass this around.

I watered everybody else last night.

I held back on a couple.

You're going to feel the weight.

I'm going to pass two of them around.

You can weigh them out and feel the difference.

If it's wet, it's going to be heavier.

If it's dry, it's going to be a lot lighter.

This one was watered last night.

This one was not.

You can feel the weight difference.

I'll let you guys pass those around.

There's a big difference.

You can check your orchids by how much water you've got inside the pot by how much it weighs.

Water weighs what, 7.6 or 7.8 I think per gallon of water.

That's an easy way to test them.

The other way is you can take a number two pencil, freshly sharpen it, and you can actually insert it down in the pot.

If it comes back out clean and dry.

it's time to water it.

If it's coming back out with stuff on it and it's a little damp,

wait a couple of days. What's the number one killer of orchids? No, you're right, it's water.

So people, who said that? You're right, you're actually right, it's people.

Don't be, you know guys with orchids, don't be afraid to try new things.

There's all kinds of neat stuff out there.

You just have to kind of look for them, but they're out there.

I'm always trying new species and different types just to see if I can grow it.

I can't tell you how many I've killed.

While working with John Odom down in Fort Pierce, I've seen John walk out to an orchid bench and pick up a plant in a pot, a six-inch pot, bring it to the potting area, throw it in the trash and go, well that was ten thousand dollars.

So you know, if we, you know, if we can kill that stuff, so can you.

It happens, you know, especially to a serious collector like John Odom.

So my intention is to get you guys interested and get your hobby going a little bit.

What I want to talk to you guys today is the different varieties, types of orchids that we have here at the nursery now.

We brought in some new stuff this week.

I got a couple of fresh shipments in.

How many of you have seen what we in the Orchid Society call bag babies?

Everybody's seen these bag babies at all the other stores, the big box stores.

Okay, that head grower over in Sarasota is the man that grows these.

This plant typically at a show is going to cost you anywhere between $25 and $30.

These bag babies are $18.99.

You know, typically some of this stuff is $25 to $30 at a show. These things are great value.

Now, my job is to bring them in and see how I can do with you guys to sell them.

But the nice thing about these, you go into the big box stores, you look at all the orchids, there's no name tags on them.

Every one of these plants has its name.

You can take that name on your cell phone and Google it. A picture of that flower will come up.

There are some great finds in this stuff.

One of our people here yesterday raided the boxes yesterday and took home a Susan Fender's cinnamon stick.

That orchid down at Odom sells for 50 bucks in a six-inch pot. She paid $18.99 for it.

So, I mean, if you know what you're looking for in these bag babies, you can find some really neat

stuff. And there's everything from cattleyas to dendrobiums.

I haven't brought in any of the vandas yet.

I'm sticking mainly to the cattleya

type. But there's all kinds of different varieties.

You know, the star-shaped ones. And you can tell I watered them yesterday. She's still dripping.

And that's a problem in the big box stores.

Nobody takes care of them.

They sit on the rack and they dehydrate.

The encyclias.

Everybody knows why this area is called Orchid Island?

Anybody know? The wild orchid in the trees, on the oak trees, is Encyclia tempensis.

And it was originally named Tempensis because it was discovered originally in Tampa.

But this is another species of Encyclia.

Like I said, there are orchids that bloom

in every climate, in every type of sun.

There's also orchids that grow at different times of year, or that bloom in the different times of year.

The encyclias are in the middle of the heat during the summer, when most of your cattleyas are not blooming.

So, these guys are little heat monsters.

They'll bloom their hearts out in June, July.

Where most of your cattleyas are either going to bloom January through April, typically.

And then if they're going to bloom another time in the year, it's going to be somewhere about October through November, December.

So, you know, if you're looking for stuff, you know, just look to some of these.

Do the research on the tags.

Pull the tag up.

Google it.

You'll find some neat stuff in these bag babies.

I am an avid collector of these things.

I will go to the stores and when I see the pallet sitting in the store, I break it open and I get yelled at by two different employees when I do it.

So, and actually, there's one down here that's going home with one of you that when I caught it, and this was before I got my shipment in, I went in and busted open the box.

I had three different employees that day yell at me, you can't have those yet.

I'm like, watch me.

So, I'm going to encourage you to look at these things.

There is another tray in the orchid room.

I brought one tray out here.

Take a look at them, you know, look at them because you're going to find some really neat different stuff in there. Like I said, Rob Palmer over in Sarasota is the head grower from them.

I can tell you every one of those plants came from Rob's personal stud plants.

So, they were developed at his greenhouse and then the babies were shipped off to China, grown out, shipped back, and they're finished out

and sold in these bags and shipped out to you guys.

This is Florida Orchid Growing Month by Month by Dr.

Martin Motz in Miami.

In this book, it will go month by month and it will tell you what you should be doing with your orchids.

If you can't get a hold of me, you can get a hold of this book.

The book is $29.95.

It is a Bible.

You know, I've been growing since 1995.

I still find myself going back to this book and double checking myself.

This is an invaluable tool.

When Dr.

Motz wrote it originally, I think he sold out the first publication within two years.

And I'm not sure how many books he did, but this is an updated version

and it's got some more information on what to do during hurricanes and cold snaps.

So, there's new information in this book that's actually pretty incredible.

So, if you're new to growing orchids, I would highly suggest you pick this book up.

It is such a great tool.

Now, I've been peddling this book through the Orchid Society,

through some of the shows, and everybody that's bought it has just said, thank you.

That thing helped me out so much.

So, it's a good book.

If you guys want these,

I do have a stack here. If I run out of those, I do have more in back.

So, just ask us, we'll get you one. There's some more in the orchid room also.

I can't recommend a better resource for new orchids than this.

This is a better resource for new orchid growers in the state of Florida.

Most of the orchid books that you're going to find out that are published are for people in the Northeast or in Europe.

The climate is completely different here than it is in those areas.

So, that book addresses all the issues that we have to deal with.

Okay. Inside some of these bags too, you're going to find different types.

There are dendrobiums, cattleyas, encyclias,

usually renantheras, which is a type of Vanda type plant.

So, do look at these things.

You know,

look at the header card.

It's going to basically give you a rough idea of what the flower is

kind of going to look like.

But also, Google the name on the tag, because that Google will pull up the picture of that flower every time.

What I want to cover now are the different types of orchids.

Everybody knows what these guys are. Yes? No, not a cattleya.

Paphopedilum, or what we commonly refer to as a lady slipper.

Okay. How many of you know this is not an orchid? It technically is not an orchid.

It's classified as an orchid, but it technically is not an orchid.

Lady slippers are a lot of fun.

They're a little more care.

They require

a more even water application. They do not like to dry out real hard.

What happens, and I'm going to use somebody's plant as an example. Hide your head. I see you.

What happens is these orchids on the roots have really fine hairs.

If those fine hairs dry out real hard, the plant goes into decline and typically dies.

That's what's going on here.

Unfortunately, it got too dry, the fine hairs dried out, and it's struggling.

It looks like it's trying to pop new roots up on the side of the stem.

That's what I think it's trying to do. I'm not sure what that is.

When you water these guys, keep them evenly moist, not sopping wet.

You will rot the root.

Now, unfortunately, the grower is shipping them to us in sphagnum moss.

I would not recommend keeping these in sphagnum moss.

The grower grows them in sphagnum moss so he can go through water once a week or once every two weeks.

That moss will just stay wet enough.

For you at home, I would recommend that you move it into an orchid potting-type soil mix.

Water quality does matter, too.

Real quick, let me ask you, how many of you have well water?

How many of you have a water softener?

Do not water your orchids with water softener water.

It's got salt in it. It will kill your orchids.

If you can, set up a rain barrel where you can collect rainwater or use city water.

Do not use water from a water softener.

The extra salt will kill your orchids.

It will kill ferns, too.

If you've got ferns and you're having problems with it, that's probably what's going on.

We did bring in, for the first time, some intergeneric Oncidium types.

These guys do extremely well in bright, indirect light like you've got underneath this oak tree.

They do fabulous.

They also do extremely well mounted onto the side of a palm tree.

So they'll do really well that way.

These especially love to grow in a basket in moss.

It's an Oncidium.

In that book, it'll go through the different types, too, and tell you how to grow them or how they like to grow better.

Oncidiums, bright, indirect light, great plant.

As they get bigger, will produce a myriad of flower spikes.

Just really neat.

Catalea.

Cat.

The queen of orchids.

Cataleas are typically what were used as corsage orchids back in the early 1900s to mid-1900s.

1950s and whatnot.

Mamie Eisenhower, I think, was the first one to start wearing them as a corsage as the first lady.

I think every first lady does have an orchid named after her, just like they do with a rose.

When I think of orchids, I think of cataleas.

I don't think of Phalaenopsis.

Neat orchids.

I will tell you, though, the bloom period on these in cooler weather is maybe three weeks maximum.

Unless it's a big plant and you get multiple flower spikes that come over a period.

But once the flowers open, you're going to get about two to three weeks out of them during the cooler weather.

If it's blooming in hotter weather, maybe two weeks.

So the flowers only last about two weeks.

The catalea family is probably my favorite type of orchid to grow.

Now, I'm going to set that over here because I've got a reason.

The next orchid I'm going to go into are dendrobiums.

This is the largest family of orchids.

In the group of orchids, there are different families.

There's Phalaenopsis, Lady Slippers, Vandas, Dendrobiums, Bulbophyllums.

There's all kinds of varieties.

But the dendrobium family is probably the biggest and most diverse.

These are the dendrobiums that we're used to seeing.

We call these hard cane dendrobiums.

The deal with these is they do not like to go below 50 degrees.

If they go below 50 degrees, they'll drop the leaves and you'll get a bare pseudobulb or cane.

And then in the spring, a new growth will come out and you'll get leaves again.

They grow during the summer.

During the fall and winter, they will spike and flower.

This is typically what we are all used to seeing in dendrobiums.

Now, this is also a dendrobium.

This is a dendrobium noble.

These have become extremely popular in the last, I'd say, five years.

This was the dendrobium in the Vero Beach Orchid Society display at Port St. Lucie last year.

It took first place for all the dendrobiums in the whole show.

I left it outside in front of my shade house on an old birdcage and didn't water it, didn't fertilize it, didn't do anything to it this year.

Did nothing to it.

Sat in that little pot and it's blooming its little heart out.

I brought it in every week, a couple of times a week.

I've been trying to do mini classes for the staff here to start bringing them up to speed with orchids so they're a little more comfortable with it.

And I had this hanging up front.

One of our guys up there had a customer that picked it up.

She brought it to the register.

He tried to sell it for $20.

Luckily, I was there to stop him.

The hard cane dendrobium is a great plant.

Easy to grow.

Great for putting out in the landscape.

If you acclimate them, they will take some full sun.

Now, if you're doing full sun, you want to do morning hours for full sun.

Try to limit the middle of the afternoon.

How many of you have palm trees in your landscape?

You know the difference between self-cleaning palm trees and like the cabbage palms.

Self-cleaning palm trees are your Christmas palms, foxtail palms, royal palms, stuff like that.

That's where the frond and the boot completely fall off and peel off and you get the gray trunk.

I like to do them on those trees.

I don't like to do royal palms because when that boot comes off, it will dent your car.

If it falls on the orchid, it's just going to tear the orchid up.

But I will do them on foxtails.

I will do them on Christmas palms.

I'll do them on Phoenix robalinis.

You can do them on robalinis.

You can do them on the dwarf robalinis, the pygmy date palm, especially with the little miniature fails.

They'll do real well.

Okay, now the next section I'm going to go to are vandas.

I brought a couple of different varieties.

Like I said, there's an orchid for every location in your yard, whether it's bright indirect light or full sun.

Vandas typically require a lot brighter light, typically brighter light than cataleas.

So typically you need a little brighter light.

Now, I brought in different varieties to teach you guys about the physiology on vandas with light.

Let's think about a leaf as a solar collector.

The bigger, whiter the leaf, the more light it's trying to collect.

The skinnier, thinner leaf, that means it's out in full sun.

It doesn't need to collect as much light.

So this little pencil cactus type, we call this a terete vanda.

This thing grows in full sun all day long.

It's on the south side of my greenhouse, and it cooks all day.

Absolutely roasts, even through the summer.

These things grow in full sun.

Now, with that being said, everybody's used to growing strapped leaf vandas.

Okay, these are typically what you guys are used to seeing.

in the stores.

These are what we call strap-leaf vandas.

These are the most popular.

This is what typically everybody's growing.

Now, when you cross this with this, you're going to get this.

This is what we call a semi-tarite, all right? That will also live in full sun.

You have to acclimate it to it, but it will live in full sun.

I grow all my semi-tarites now out in full sun in a clay pot with a little wire tube running up the center, just like this, with it tied to the pot, with it grown in lava rock in the pot.

Full sun, they get watered every day, and they're just happy as a pig in mud.

Like I said, there are orchids that you can grow in any amount of light, especially the vandas.

Now, what's the number one drawback to vandas? Water.

Every day.

For 20 minutes.

Every day.

Vandas are heavy watering plants.

They love a lot of water.

The reason being is typically they're not in a pot.

They're usually in a basket with the roots hanging down, so they don't have any way to store any water in that pot.

Now, there's another piece of physiology on orchids.

I'm going to show you to tell you that you can determine how often you're going to have to water.

It's going to give you an idea of roughly how frequently you need to water an orchid, and I'll cover that in just a second.

Now, when people start breeding with this, you get, when you cross them with the regular vandas, you go from this to what we call quarter treat, you go to semi-treat, and then you go to this.

It starts out this, goes to that, goes to this, and then to that.

This is one end, full sun.

The other end, bright indirect light.

The three on this side, not including the strap leaf, will be accustomed.

You can acclimate them to full sun.

You can grow this stuff in full sun on the south side of the house, and just cook them to death, and they'll do okay, but you do have to acclimate them.

All right, water them every day.

For about 20 minutes, I sit there and spray them.

When you see the roots on these guys, the roots are white.

Once you spray them down and water them, the roots are going to start turning green.

Once the roots are green, then they're actively taking up moisture.

No. If you only have one plant, yes.

If you have multiple plants, no.

If you've got one plant that's got a disease or a fungus, and you put it in a bucket of water to soak up water, you take it out, you put it back, and then you take the others behind it and put it in that bucket of water.

You just gave everything behind this that had a problem its problem.

I don't recommend watering out of a bucket unless it's just one plant.

You usually let them sit in for five to ten minutes, take them out, because they're going to be fully hydrated at that point. They're not going to absorb any more, and then just put them back where you're going to grow them.

Okay. Now, I brought in a couple of examples today of my favorite orchids.

Oh, no, I didn't talk about Evelyn.

How many have heard the story about Evelyn, the first orchid I ever bought?

You guys have heard about it.

I know you've heard about Evelyn.

All right.

The first orchid I ever bought, I bought from Ritter Orchids up in Orlando.

It was 1995.

Ritter Orchids at that point was on

Orange Avenue just south of downtown Orlando.

I used to go there on my days off and hang out and talk to Tom.

It's where I've learned a lot of what I know was watching Tom.

You couldn't pry information out of him.

You had to watch him do it to get it.

The first time I walked in, the front greenhouse, his wife Evelyn worked the front and did customer service.

Tom took care of growing the orchids.

So, I walked in the front greenhouse, and I saw this wonderful, huge vanda, 14 flower spikes on it.

It's right around Valentine's Day.

I walked in, and I looked at it.

I said, is that for sale? Evelyn looked at me and said, no.

I said, okay.

Do you have any others?

No. Okay.

If you ever divide it, could I put my name down for a piece of it? No, I'm never dividing that orchid.

Evelyn used to tell everybody Tom was the mean one.

Bless Evelyn's heart.

Unfortunately, about six months after that, Evelyn was in the yard mowing the lawn, had a heart attack, and passed away.

I showed up in the nursery one day.

That big orchid with 14 flower spikes on it, hanging in the middle of the front greenhouse, was gone.

I turned around, looked at Tom.

I said, where'd it go? What happened to it? Oh, we took it down, chopped it up.

I said, what? I said, do you have any?

He goes, yeah. This is it. Ever since, I've had this since 1995.

It always blooms for Valentine's Day. It's a little beat up. My greenhouse got too hot this spring.

This is the first time it's put out three flower spikes.

Apparently, it liked the heat a little more than I thought it would.

It always blooms for Valentine's Day.

I've still got it. This is the first time I think I've ever brought it to a talk. No, you can't buy it.

They're real light.

I have really light, light shade cloth with clear plastic over my shade house.

I put as much light on my orchids as I possibly can.

Now, I told you about Vandas with light. I did not talk to you about the Dendrobiums with light.

The hard cane, another good one for putting out in the landscape with full sunlight if you acclimate it.

The Dendrobium nobles, like I said, have become very popular.

I recommend that you grow these in a plastic pot in sphagnum moss, not in bark.

Grow them in full sun.

The only thing is the more sun you're growing it in, you're going to have to water it more frequently.

Now, to get it to bloom like this, there's a trick.

You abuse it.

You literally, in October, you stop feeding it, you stop watering it.

If it's hanging outside, it gets rained on, fine, no problem.

Do not put orchid food on this during the winter.

I stop in October.

Now, I didn't follow my own advice.

All my other Dendrobium nobles are inside the greenhouse.

They've been getting fed all along.

They don't look nearly this full.

So, these will do very well out in the landscape. They're actually suited for our climate.

They like cold weather.

So, if we're going down into the 30s, you don't have to haul this sucker inside.

You can leave it outside and it will enjoy that colder weather.

Good question.

Good question. All right. This is what we call soft cane, Dendrobium noble.

The thing with these is when it grows out, it grows out new canes with leaves all over it.

In October, when you stop fertilizing it, you stop watering it, all the leaves fall off.

They do that on purpose.

They go dormant in the winter.

Until you get flower spikes,

actual buds, not just the flower spike coming out.

You have to have defined flower buds on this before you can start feeding it again.

You will bloom the daylights out of this thing if you abuse it.

Don't fertilize these things in the winter.

They're becoming more and more popular.

I tried to get three cases.

They sold them all out.

They're gone for the season.

So, we won't see these again probably until next year.

I tried, but it just didn't work.

so we were a little late.

So if you've got any questions, you know, with dendrobiums, they're great plants.

I mean, and you just about can't kill them if you know what you're doing.

The little thing up here behind me, that's another type of dendrobium.

It's called a calista form of dendrobium, and it does talk about in the book the different varieties of dendrobiums.

The calista forms also like a rest period in the winter where they don't get a lot of fertilizer.

They don't drop their leaves, but they do like a drying out period

and a period where they don't receive any food.

When that blooms, the flowers usually last seven to 10 days.

That's it, and it's done for a year.

Okay, we haven't hit, well, I brought in a couple of different things.

I brought in the tariq banda.

This is typically how I'm growing my tariq bandas

in a plastic pot with a little wire tube around the bottom of it with the cuttings attached and potted up with lava rock.

I grow them out on the full sun south side of my greenhouse,

and this was probably the smallest one to bring in.

I've got a couple that are probably this big around that I couldn't fit in the back of the truck to bring in for show and tell.

This other

monster back here is the smallest one I've got. The other two are 8 and 12 feet.

They wouldn't fit in the truck. One's leaning across the top of my lemon tree.

That is, I believe, Anne Black.

It is in the banda family, full sun, full sun, grows really great, has a neat looking flower.

It's got one spike on this one so far

that I can see. I think I've only got one spike coming on this one.

The big one at home has 13 flower spikes coming out on it right now,

so I can't wait till that blooms.

Another orchid that'll grow in full sun.

These are the types of orchids that do really well around the base of a palm tree and that will attach to a palm tree if the boots are cleaned off.

If you're ready and willing to water them every day, just spray them down.

They'll do great out in the landscape.

Wonderful orchids.

Now, the one thing I didn't talk about yet were the chamburkias.

I'm a chamburkia freak.

If I can find something that's got chamburkia in it, I'm buying it.

That's what the majority of my collection at home is,

and there's a reason for that.

Chamburkias will take full sun.

They're hardy.

You just about can't kill them, and they'll grow like a weed here in Florida.

Chamburkias are these guys.

Those flower spikes aren't even half grown yet.

Some of you have heard this story.

There's a house out on the island off of A1A

on Fiddlewood that has one of these in the center of an oak tree.

This oak tree goes up and divides.

They started one off down at the bottom, and it went up both branches.

It's as big as our dumpster out back.

When it flowers, the flower spikes are about 20 feet around the diameter of the tree, and they're just everywhere.

The house that was on that lot was just torn down.

They're building a new house.

That gentleman actually sent the Orchid Society an email, and I had to go out and talk to him and educate him, tell him what it was, how to take care of it, what to do, what not to do.

It's a really neat orchid.

It's been up there since 1955.

It's handled all the freezes, the hurricanes.

It has gone through heck and back.

It's like a Timex. It took a licking and kept on ticking. It just keeps going. Great plant.

If you get a chance, come up and feel leaves.

They're like cardboard.

Insects don't typically

affect them like they do the other orchids.

They're great landscape plants.

The only drawback with these is on the Chumburkias, at the base of the pseudobulb, there is a little hole,

and you will find that ants will go and nest up inside the pseudobulbs.

Y'all are going to scream, but they're actually hollow on the inside, and the ants will nest inside them.

That's normal.

Chumburkia, S-C-H-O-M-B-U-R-G-K-I-A, I believe.

Now, they've taken that group of orchids and divided it into two classes.

Chumburkias have gone into Myrmecophila.

Myrmecophila now are the ones with the hollow pseudobulbs.

Lalias, which are also Chumburkias, some Lalias,

which is another form of Cattleya, does not have a hollow pseudobulb. There is a difference.

Okay. Now, the reason I'm showing you the Chumburkias is because a lot of people will take them and hybridize them with a standard Cattleya.

When they hybridize them with a standard Cattleya, instead of getting a real tall flower spike, if I don't beat myself up with it,

they get a shorter flower spike with a bigger flower.

Chumburkias typically have a

kind of a funky shaped flower to it, but when you cross them with Cattleyas, you get a bigger flower, get a shorter flower spike, and you get a fantastic orchid specimen for landscape.

As time goes on, some of the palm trees on the south side of this property will start having some Chumburkias tied to them.

So, keep your eyes open.

How many of you think orchids are delicate

and temperamental? Oh, they're sturdy as a rock.

All right.

Temperamental? No.

The only thing with orchids is too much water.

This thing has been sitting on the top of my orchid bench for four years.

Just four years.

I've done nothing to it.

You know, it gets fed, it gets watered, it's not in a pot, it's not in a basket, and it just keeps ticking.

Yes, ma'am.

Depending on how often I'm watering it.

Now, I'm in the process, you know, I've been rebuilding a lot of my orchid benches,

so I'm getting ready to go through and repot everything.

So, I'm going to be dividing and repotting.

I'm also making room in the greenhouse.

Another example of a Cattleya

is this little guy.

He's in the pot with no potting material.

He's been sitting in the greenhouse for three years.

This came from one of the ladies that passed away in the orchid society. This is one of her plants, and this is how she had it. She didn't put it in a pot.

She didn't put it in a basket, and it's blooming its little heart out.

It's actually Dendrobium noble.

It's a species.

Yes, you do.

When you don't have any potting material, there's no way for them to hold a little moisture in the pot and be able to pull moisture from it.

So, when they're bare root like this, or they're mounted on a tree, you do have to water more frequently.

and I'll cover that when we do an orchid mounting class, and I'll cover that for you guys just to give you guys a better idea.

Now, the Chumberkias, you think, my god, I don't want to grow a Chumberkia. Look at the size of that thing.

It'll take up, you know, the whole back porch or whatever.

There are different species of Chumberkias.

Kind of slow growers.

They're not real fast growers.

It'll take, you know, I've had that for what, three or four pseudobulbs for like five years, and that's as big as it's gotten.

I've not taken or cut anything off of it,

so it will get there. I bought this two years ago at Redlands. Put it on the piece of wood.

It bloomed for me last year, and I've got one flower spike coming up out of the top.

It'll be about two months before I see flowers, but it is coming.

This is actually a

Yeah, it is alba purpurea. They've renamed it Thompsoniana variety alba purpurea.

It's a little white flower with a purple lip, and it's native to I believe

yeah, Grand Cayman.

So you can find this species growing wild on Grand Cayman.

All right.

Now we've talked about everything there.

I want to talk to you about potting.

When you grow, yes ma'am, those are epidendrums.

Those are what we call the poor man's orchid.

Actually, when orchids started arriving, they didn't just, you know, people didn't go to South America, discover these orchids and landscape, started taking them and growing them.

When they were going to South America to collect plant samples, they would crate them up, pack them in crates,

and to use for

packing material, they would take the orchids off the tree and pack them in the boxes to hold the other plant material in place.

Well, they would open up the crates, you know, bring them out. Every once in a while, one would flower while it's inside the crate.

So they discovered, you know,

you know, something different. So they've started growing them.

Back before you could get Cattleyas, you know, a simple Cattleya like that little Dendrobium noble, you'd buy for two,

$300 and for a back division.

The back end of it with, you know, maybe a couple of leaves on it.

The price has come down considerably, but that's why these were called the poor man's orchids. Everybody could afford them.

Not everybody could afford that.

So the orchid hobby has come a long way.

Now everybody's familiar with

repotting in orchid bark.

Everybody knows the Better Grow orchid bark.

Yes? How many of you have used this before?

Okay, how often do you have to repot with this stuff? Anybody know?

Go ahead.

Yep.

I love this stuff.

It's great.

But if you want to repot every year,

use it.

With orchid bark in the state of Florida, with the rains we get during the summer, the humidity that we get,

this stuff breaks down and turns to mud in the pot.

And what happens with the orchids when the pot doesn't dry out is the roots rot.

And that's when the plant starts to go into decline.

So you have to repot and put them back into fresh mix.

Now I've done something.

I've brought in a new

mix. Where is it? Where'd it go? I brought in what is called Orchiata orchid bark.

All right, this is from,

where is it?

So I don't mispronounce the name.

Okay.

It's an orchid bark that comes from New Zealand first, but it's a specific type of fir tree.

And it's Pinus radiata bark.

The nice thing about this stuff is, is it does not decompose and rot

like the other stuff.

Say you buy one bag of that and you repot your orchids.

Next year you're going to have to buy another bag and repot.

The following year you're going to have to buy another bag and repot.

The following year you're going to have to buy another bag and repot.

This you can go up to seven years without repotting.

No, it's not volcanic. It's actually orchid bark. It's tree bark.

You literally do not have to repot as often as you do with the other

orchid barks. This stuff is wonderful.

I brought it in. It will save you money.

It will save you time.

I'm shooting myself in the foot on my sales on the other stuff.

But I'm educating you and making less work for you.

Orchids, when you grow them in a pot, the bark usually breaks down.

It is recommended that you repot if it's in bark every two years to sweeten that mix up so that when you water it, water goes through it and doesn't sit in there.

Like I said, the number one killer of orchids is water.

So if those roots don't have a chance to dry out, they're going to rot.

This will allow those pots to drain out without breaking down.

And you'll find that with the other bark, as time goes on, it actually turns to almost like a dirt

compost type mix.

And it just stays wet. It never dries out.

So I love this. Some of my bigger plants at home are in this.

And I can tell you right now, I have not repotted in probably seven years.

This year, I've got to repot everything.

Good question.

Where would you grow a clay pot?

All right.

Now, if you're...do you have a screen porch or anything like that?

Okay. Is it covered over the top?

Okay. It's covered where it doesn't get any rain.

Okay. Any of you growing on a screened-in porch where you have a roof where it doesn't get rained on?

Okay. There's an issue with that.

If you're growing Phalaenopsis, the moth orchids, I would recommend that you grow them in moss if they're undercover.

If you're in a screened enclosure, you can grow them out there, but grow them in bark.

The reason is you want them to dry out a little bit in between watering.

So if they're underneath cover, all you have to do is water them once a week.

You don't have to worry about the summer rain.

So you can pot them in moss.

That's just the Phalaenopsis.

The Cattleyas and everything else, I would recommend that you pot them in bark.

Even if you're enjoying them underneath the covered porch where they still get morning light,

you should still be growing that in bark.

Now, if you're growing out underneath a tree in a basket, I would recommend in bark.

If it's Phalaenopsis, you can do them in moss.

Be careful because if we get rains every afternoon, that moss will stay wet.

It won't dry out.

So you have to use your own judgment on that.

Um, if you're growing them in a screened area, I would grow them in bark in a clay pot.

Now, the difference between clay and plastic pots is what?

Plastic pots retain moisture.

They don't evaporate through the side of the pot.

A clay pot is porous.

It will actually wick.

And I'm going to pass this around.

I'll let you guys look at this.

I will start down on the end.

This is the super size.

This stuff is wonderful.

I use the super size myself because it's a bigger, chunkier bark.

It also is easier to use in the baskets because it doesn't fall through the basket.

You may have to put a little bit of screening in the bottom to hold it in.

But typically, it's a better bark.

It's a much better product.

We actually had an orchid grower named Paul Storm that specialized in the Shumbo cats, the Shumberkia and Catalaya crosses, and the Shumberkias.

And he turned everybody on to it.

He was the first person to start selling it and promoting it.

And it has taken off like wildfire.

The only problem with that is before now, the only places you can get it is Orlando or Miami.

The Orchiata Orchid Bark.

And I carry it in the big bags, two different sizes.

There's a super size, which is a three quarter inch to one inch bark chunk.

And then I carry a power size.

It's New Zealand, so they're going to name everything a little bit differently.

They also carry it in liters instead of gallons or pounds.

These are 40 liter bags.

The sizes on them are either super or power plus.

Now, the little bags are just straight power, which is a smaller orchid size.

I recommend the two bigger sizes because they just.