Blooming

What an Orchid Can Teach Us About Blooming

September 29, 2017

I’ve been thinking about growing conditions lately.

Orchids started this train of thought. Mine have always seemed to do fine on our covered lanai without much fuss. However, even though all the plants look healthy, only one or two of them ever actually bloomed. I’d love to have more flowers, so I decided to research each orchid variety I have to see what constituted that plant’s ideal growing conditions. Based on what I learned, I moved several to different positions, providing both more sun and more water than they’d been getting.



Lo and behold, two that hadn’t bloomed since I bought them produced flowers and two more sent up flower spikes that should bloom in the next couple of months.

Huh.

A simple tweak in growing conditions nudged them from just getting by to thriving.

Shortly thereafter I stumbled on this passage:

“When a tree is tender and young, first making its roots, a gardener knows to fence it from deer, fertilize it with nutrients, pay loving attention as it gets started. The gardener doesn’t grow the tree; she provides the conditions in which it can thrive. We need to do the same with our souls, hearts, spirits, bodies. We need to provide the conditions in which we can thrive, and those conditions involve other people. We need to put ourselves in circumstances in which we can be seen, heard, and loved for who we are and want to become.

“We are so used to battering ourselves around. To toughing it out. To taking care of everyone else and not looking after ourselves. We are used to throwing the seeds of our lives in soil and not paying them one more minute of attention. In fact, we do the opposite. We stamp on our hearts. We attack and punish ourselves. We don’t trust our fundamental desire to move toward the light….” (Geneen Roth in When You Eat at the Refrigerator, Pull Up a Chair.)

Roth is specifically writing about how we treat ourselves in relation to food and dieting, but her words apply to everything we do (or don’t do) to nurture ourselves.

Most of us are too used to toughing it out, and to seeing our needs as weaknesses. What would happen if instead of trying to get by on a minimum of sleep, nutrition, downtime, and enjoyment, we tried giving ourselves optimal amounts of the things we need to feel great? Things like healthful, delicious food; sleep; movement that feels good rather than punishing; time to do something just for fun? Are we too busy for that? Does that sound like weakness instead of strength?

How much more beautiful and profuse might our own blooming be if we gave ourselves optimal growing conditions? As I learned from moving orchids around, it might not take much to help us thrive.

Taking steps to nurture ourselves doesn’t mean becoming hothouse flowers that wither in every cold draft or scorching heat wave. When we learn our own ideal growing conditions and make efforts to provide them, we grow stronger and healthier. A strong plant can more easily withstand hardships when they come.

Do you want to do more than survive? To bloom abundantly rather than just put out a few leaves? What are your ideal growing conditions? In the comments below, share some things you can do to bloom more often!

Delight

Field Trip Friday--First Orchids

June 19, 2015

Did I need more orchids? Well, no, I didn’t need any, but when my orchid-loving friend Barb asked me if I wanted to go to a wholesale orchid nursery, I said yes. I counted my empty orchid pots (there have been a couple of casualties lately) and decided I could buy a few. How many did I buy? We’ll get to that.

After a two-hour drive, we came to this unprepossessing exterior:


Which led into this:


No, I didn’t drool.

But I did spend a happy hour with my friend examining orchids, choosing which to add to our collections, trying to guess what the ones without open blooms would look like. Prices ranged from $3 to $12, depending on the size and variety of orchid. We filled a large box with our choices, paid for them and loaded them in Barb’s van. Definitely a delight-ful field trip.

I bought nine. Most are in some stage of blooming, but I have one that will be a surprise. Its buds are tightly closed and I don’t know yet what it will look like.

Here are some photos:







Have you taken any field trips lately?

Being present

This Morning...

March 21, 2014

I hear:   leaves rustling as they drop from the oak trees; a muted radio and the sound of a nail gun popping from a renovation going on nearby; Scout barking; the roar of a leaf blower; a far-off train whistle; the pool filter clicking on; various birds chirping and singing.


I see: sunlight and shadows making patterns on the ground and the surface of the pool; orchid buds opening, Spanish moss lazily blowing; ripples on the pool from the cycling filter; foliage trembling in the breeze.

I feel: mild, damp air; achy back (I’ve been sitting too long); cool metal of the chair arm.

I smell: Cold coffee in my mug; dirt; green and growing things.

I taste: Coffee and biscotti.

The weather has been perfect for sitting outside this week, and I spent some time reading and writing on the lanai this morning. I’m amazed by all the sensory input even when I’m sitting quietly in my back yard!

What did you hear, see, smell, feel and taste today?

A Field Guide to Now

TGIM

September 30, 2013


That’s right—thank goodness it’s Monday! I’ve written before about how Monday is one of my favorite days of the week. It remains so, I think partly because it has so much variety. I pack a lot of simple pleasures into Mondays, and sometimes some everyday adventures. For example, today I:

Drank coffee from my favorite mug and ate a homemade coconut ginger scone while reading A Field Guide to Now.

Walked our nature trail with a friend.

Went to see Tank. He was feeling very full of himself and we had some fun playing horse games on the ground. And his lips are almost completely healed up!

Took a delightful and much-needed warm shower after sweating (and sweating) in the 90-degree heat—it’s fall, darn it—won’t someone please turn off the heat?

Folded some laundry and changed the sheets on our bed. My husband and I both love fresh sheets! Going to sleep tonight will be extra nice.

Looked for freelance writing jobs online and asked for more information about a posting for a horse health blogger!

Fertilized my orchids.

Still to come:

Reading for pleasure. I have several books started, and I’ll be picking up either No Name or Fragile—or both—later today.

Watching my Tampa Bay Rays play the Texas Rangers for the second American League wild card spot.

What simple pleasures and everyday adventures did you enjoy today?

Everyday adventures

Adventures in Orchids

October 22, 2012

Danger!

Finally we had some gorgeous, fall-like weather this weekend, so my husband, mother-in-law and I checked out an orchid show and sale at the USF Botanical Gardens in Tampa. Lucky for us, there were only 12 vendors. We still managed to buy six orchids.

It’s a sickness, I tell you.

My husband and I go for variety in both size and color. I’m partial to scented orchids, my husband likes the dramatic and unusual ones. (If it’s variety you want, orchids are your flower: according to Wikipedia, orchids are one of the largest families of flowering plants, with more than 20,000 species found in 880 genera. Horticulturalists have produced more than 100,000 hybrids and cultivars since the introduction of tropical species in the 19th century.)

The new additions joined their brethren on our lanai where I hope they’ll be happy. One of my next chores needs to be writing down what types of orchids I have and what conditions they like.

I never thought I’d be interested in orchids. I’ve always preferred flowers like peonies, hydrangeas, roses. I can’t grow those here in Florida—at least not very successfully. (I’ve also become resigned to the lack of tulips and daffodils in my life.) But I can grow orchids—they thrive in our humid climate, so I’m going with the flow. If I can’t have a cottage garden, I’ll have a tropical one instead. At least I have flowers.

Here are the new additions. This one is tiny:

Oncidium Tsiki Marguerite
At the other extreme, this vanda is huge: 



This one, also a vanda, is scented:


Just love the color of this:

Miltassia C.M. Fitch ‘Izumi’...or so says the label...
This was unlabeled, but I think it’s a phaleonopsis:


I don’t know what this is, either, and am not sure of what the label says. Any ideas?


It felt good to be outside (and not be sweaty), to drink in the beauty of the flowers, to be with people I love, while at the same time fanning my passion for orchids. A satisfactory Saturday.

How have you fed your passions lately?

Orchids

Orchid Fever

May 12, 2010


I’d like to introduce you to Mr. Fancy Pants. His official name is “Psy. Mariposa Oncidium ‘Green Valley,’” but Mr. Fancy Pants rolls off the tongue a bit better. I wish I could take credit for his nickname, but my friend Barb, who is responsible for my obsession hobby of orchid-keeping, came up with this moniker. We think he looks like a flamenco dancer—can you see his little head, ruffled shirt and fancy pants?

Barb helped me choose my first two orchids. I purchased several more on my own, and each time after they finished blooming, for at least two years I waited in vain for another blossom. During that time, a couple of the new purchases went to the big greenhouse in the sky (and imagine what that looks like!). I swore to myself until one of my purchases bloomed for a second time, I wasn’t going to buy any more. In the meantime, I did a little research on orchids, and decided mine might do better on our lanai—perhaps our house was too dry/cool/had the wrong type of sunlight. Barb’s orchids, which she keeps inside, bloom their hearts out constantly. Indoors, mine were sad little ghosts of themselves, even when I put them near the window in our steamy bathroom.

So I dutifully moved them outside. And lo and behold, in the fullness of time, a flower stem appeared, first on one and then another! Well. That was it. I began looking for orchids that were “different”—I bought a scented orchid (Oncidium Sherry Baby) and one that lives attached to a piece of wood—“Epi Timezepe Belle x Epi Tampensis x Epi Memorale” says the tag. Whatever that means. I infected my husband with orchid fever, and now he wants us to have enough plants so that we always have one blooming.


We now have 12 orchids. Four including Fancy Pants are blooming right now, and three more have buds that haven’t yet opened. I am no orchid expert—in fact mine seem to thrive on benign neglect. I’ve had a couple more casualties since that first rebloom, but overall our little orchid colony is thriving.


So far I have a mild case of orchid fever. I haven’t traipsed through a swamp in search of a rare variety or illegally picked any in the wild. I don’t have a greenhouse filled with thousands of plants—and I don’t want one. I don’t want to become an expert or spend untold hours and money to amass a huge collection. My orchids are a simple pleasure and a way to add beauty to our surroundings. And that's enough.


For more information on orchids, visit the American Orchid Society at http://www.aos.org/.