Orchid Society of the Palm Beaches

Transcription

1 Orchid Society of the Palm Beaches P O Box Royal Palm Beach FL Find us on Facebook September 2015 Next Meeting Thursday, October 8, 7 pm. Speaker Tony Romani, R&R Orchids, Growing Vandas Outdoors. Mary Scheitler will hold the door open. Refreshments to be provided by October birthday babies: Marcia Alkema, Doris Happel, Randy McGiveron and Chris Tiner. September Meeting: The bylaws were approved by the members who stayed. A few copies will be available at the October meeting for members who would like to take a look at them. Mary will have them at the front table. Photos from Meeting September 10, 2015 Speaker Weyman Bussey President Jacob Galeski Patt Lindsey and her fabulous catts 1

2 Meeting September 10,

3 Everything Orchids Sale at Mounts, September 11 Jacob Galeski and Katie McGiveron with first customers Chery Akey, Thanh, Mary Jo Prosser Linda Greco Alan Lasch, Thanh Nguyen, Shannon Patt Lindsey and Jacob Cym. Vanna White Charline Nakamura Mary Scheitler Tipr and Gloria Kennedy Omar Gonzalez 3

4 OSPB was well represented at the Open House at R & R Orchids on September 26. Alan Lasch John Goehring Frank Cianfrone Cecy Gaddoni Donna Tobey Elaine McKelvey and Brenda Lines Linda Greco Happy Campers Katie McGiveron, Patt Lindesey, Susie Cioci Sadie Bicknell Patt Lindsey & Linda Greco Tony Romani Please support our Sponsors 4

5 Part 2 Tips & Tricks For Better Growing And Happier Orchids Shared by Keith Davis at the 5th Cattleya Symposium, August 5, 2015 No-slip hangers for plastic pots: this tip will allow you to not have to worry about hangers coming off. Heat hangers at elbow of bend just enough to let tip melt into the pot. IMMEDIATELY cool tip with water. For very heavy and large pots, use 2 hangers, opposite from each other. Hangers are much better than stakes for tying up leads or bloom spikes and offer a nice place to put the plant s name for visibility. Saving back bulbs: valuable plants are good trading bait worth lots of money. You can save back bulbs, even rootless ones by bagging them. I use clear plastic newspaper sleeves. Place a few peanuts in the bottom and some damp sphagnum moss on top. Put the back bulbs on top of the moss and seal the top. Melt two small holes in each corner of the bottom. Don t forget to label the plant. Place in medium light where no direct sun can hit it. In a year you will have a plant ready to pot up. You can also put bulbs in an empty clay pot with a bit of live Spanish moss. This works ok it there is at least one live root. Keep shady by hanging under a bench. Holding the rhizome down: clips that attach to the side of pot work well for plants in 6 pots or smaller. For larger pots and plants, I use bamboo stakes that traverse across the pot holding down the plant. Attach each end into a melted hole in the side of the pot or under a hanger. Clay pot clips are common and easy to make. Plastic pot clips are available from Tropical Plant Products ( ) or from Hicks Orchid Supplies ( ). ID tag on top of hanger: I love to tag the top of my plants as it makes finding what I m looking for easier. As I repot each plant I tag it. Just a key word can be used so letters can be larger. Hangers are cheap and help in tying up growths as well as the ID tag. Writing on labels: Most new tags are made of sorry materials that are difficult to write on with a #2 pencil. Some of the pencils found in art supply stores work better. If the label is really slick, I use a China Marker. Graphite/ lead will not fade or wash off for a very long time. The best so called permanent markers are Rub-A-Dub Laundry marker or Industrial Pro-500 degree marker. Going over the letters twice makes them last much longer. Good quality labels can be had from NATIONAL BAND AND TAG CO. ( ). Ask for virgin vinyl tags. Nice catalog too. HORTI- CULTURAL MARKETING & PRINTING also has excellent vinyl labels. ( ) or Cleaning scale from rhizomes and leaves: This process can safely and quickly be done with a forceful water stream. This also prevents tissue damage and eliminates the chance to spread virus. Remove loose sheaths by hand and then hydro-clean all parts of the plant. Grooves in bulbs will even come clean. Use a nozzle that has a concentrated area of several small streams of water. Ace Hardware sells DRAMM Revolver #12706 which is excellent. Increasing photosynthetic area of plant: On valuable or treasured plants, you can easily double the photosynthetic area by cleaning off all the dry sheaths that cover up the green chlorophyll area of the bulbs. This is like gaining extra growths as far as carbohydrrate production is concerned. Saving aerial roots: If you remove a division with aerial roots and cover them with mix, all the roots will die. Save them by placing in an empty pot. Wait till new branching/tips start to grow. At that time, add a little mix over 3 or 4 weeks till the pot is full. In this way, all the great roots will survive and the next growth will be full size. If roots had died, a whole new root system would have to be grown and the plant is set back two or more years and the new growth will be much smaller than the previous growth. Injector: I have tried a number of injectors and the best I have found is Dosmatic MiniDos 12. It has been flawless in operation for a number of years and is very easy to use. This is the #1 best tool you can have in a greenhouse. Wonder Waterer: To me, this is the best water wand available. It is a precision tool that lasts for decades. All parts can be purchased separately if damaged. Griffin Greenhouse Supply carries it. ( ). Clean the tip with LIME AWAY or similar product. If you get one, you will wonder why it took you so long! Clothespin Etiquette: I use this method to train orchid buds to display correctly. You will need several pins with different size holes to properly fit the various sized bud stems. Always sterilize pins between using on 5

6 different plants by soaking in 25% bleach solution for one hour. (Keith used a drill to enlarge the holes on the wooden clothespins. He very gently coaxed the crooked blooms to the proper position and staked them using the clothespin, just before they opened and before the stem hardened off. When the bloom is fully open and stem hardened off, you can remove the clothespin and tie-up in the usual way). Disasters: If you grow orchids long enough, chances are you will experience a disaster. Mine came in August 2002 when I lost about 10,000 orchids. After much research and talking with several people that have had similar disasters, I find that most could have been prevented. Something similar to a Sensaphone can alert you to problems. An automatic generator will prevent loss due to a power outage. Having a backup heater and fans is critical. Never have two heaters or two fans on the same circuit breaker or on the same wiring. Everything mechanical WILL BREAK AT SOME POINT. Have an extra fan motor ready to go and extra fan belts ready at a moment s notice; practice putting these on so you don t have to learn how under stress. Have extra breakers ready to install and know how to do it, all of these things break down when they are needed the most. If you have a valuable collection, be aware that there are people that will steal them if they can. Whole collections have met this demise. Sharing: SHARE your good things with trusted friends, don t be stingy. If you have a disaster, it might be the only way to get some of your one-of-a-kind plants back. Also, we all have lost treasures due to neglect or disease. I try to get a division of all my good things to a trusted friend as soon as the plant is divisible. If I sell a division of something really valuable, I always mark this on a tag on my plant, in case I lose that plant later on. Be generous and it will pay you back many times over. Training growths: Cattleyas will take up a lot less space if you train them to grow upright allowing more room for new additions. Old mature growths can be tied up with wire, but new tender growths are best trained using rubber bands to gradually pull them up with a continuous pull that is gentle. ***These notes are taken directly from the handout sheet supplied by Keith Davis. You can contact him at:dowiana51@gmail.com Please support our sponsors 6