Orchids

If you asked me a year ago if I like orchids, my answer would be "no." Today I've got 14 healthy orchids and 1 on-its-death-bed orchid. I also had one that passed away. God bless its orchid soul.

Aside from the two that aren't doing well, I've had two success stories already, and that's within the last few months I've started collecting orchids.

Here they are. This first one I rescued from my mother's place. She said she was taking care of it, but it had that lonely thrown-away look. Today it's still not large but has a small flower spike. Definitely not a root!

This one I got for $3 when it wasn't blooming. After 3 months, it has a wonderful long spike. I had to sacrifice two leaves due to a weird texture on them—most likely fungal disease. Sterilizing tools are an important lesson we all should learn early on. 

I'm definitely not an orchid whisperer. I'm having a 50% success rate so far. Unfortunately, due to not being that knowledgable about orchids, I let the mealybugs infest many of my plants. Currently it's a battle between me and the bugs. I'm sure some of my orchids also have fungal infections which I'm trying to battle as well. 

Here's an oncidium the orchid guy was happy to relinquish for free. I took it home in its pathetic state and gave it love. Hopefully it'll survive although there's not a lot of hope as it's still in the same pathetic condition now as it was two weeks ago.