I was starving my babies

Gardening, General

Honestly, I don’t know much about orchids other than they are some of the most beautiful plants in existence. You might remember how I fell for them and went semi-crazy and bought a whole bunch of them during the recent Bahrain International Garden Show, brought them home and gave them some TLC. At least, I thought I gave them some TLC; alas, according to a fantastic book I bought during my recent visit to New York’s Botanical Gardens, Orchids Growing for Wimps, I was practically starving my babies!

I treated them a little better than cactus. Just spray them every few days. The warning bells finally came on in my head when a lot of them lost their lovely flowers and some started to turn yellow. That’s when I thought I’ve got to spend some time and at least read the book a little to find out what is going wrong, and sure enough, these plants like being soaked in a tub of tepid water for 10 – 15 minutes every couple of days. So a little spray here and there – even with a fertilizer – is not enough.

I think I might have starved my orchids... this bath will hopefully help them recover
Beware; however, that not all orchids require this soaking, so please do read about your specific orchid before dunking it. I will most definitely not be responsible if you kill it!

It pays to research your plants a little. They will give back an awful lot of joy to you if you treat them well. I just hope that mine will jump back to their former glory before long…. I’ll keep you informed.

Building the orchid wall

Gallery, Garden Design

I bought quite a few orchids from the Thai stall in the recent Bahrain Int’l Garden Show, but as I was rather busy and had a trip abroad, I didn’t have a chance to do anything with them other than hang them on the light fittings in my study and leave some on the floor.

In the interim, I obviously gave them much thought as how to best display them and thought that it might be best hanging from a wall or a trellis. I had a really complicated design in mind with jute sacks and misting systems, but in the end, I opted for a very simple idea. Just a simple right-angle trellis and stand it at the entrance to my study!

I went to Manazil this morning and bought these wrought iron trellises, one is 7 foot while the other is 6 foot. I stood them next to each other and tied them together with tie-wraps to create a middle hinge. That worked fine, so the next thing to do is to actually arrange the flowers.

I hope you will see the end result from the next couple of pictures.

Have a wonderful Friday and weekend my friends.

Orchids!

Gallery

Orchids!, originally uploaded by malyousif.

Frances and I are just back from the Garden Show, and these babies are her present to me for my birthday tomorrow. I don’t care very much for the birthday as taking care of these over the next few months… I’ve got plans!!