In the last few weeks I have had this constant desire to buy orchids especially dendrobiums and fill my balcony with these lovely plants. This yearning comes from looking at photographs from the past, actually I have lost about 200 GB of data, mostly photographs of birds and animals in the wild.
The external hard disk into which I had copied all this data has got corrupted and I have been searching for these photographs all over the internet. I have been writing online for a decade or so but most of the sites I used to write for have closed down and I've lost much of the images I've posted online. That aside during this search my yearning to get back all the orchids has been slowly rising in a crescendo day after day. The inner voice has reached deafening levels.
The problem with getting orchids is that they are expensive and very fussy plants. I don't believe that we have the right conditions for them in our present home. Most of the places where I can grow plants are either too sunny or completely devoid of light. I just don't want to take chances with orchids anymore. I lost about 30-35 orchids when we first moved into this home of ours. They just didn't like the conditions inside our home and died one after the other.
The images you see here are some of the phals and dendrobiums from my collection. I remember that my favorite was a deep purple dendrobium. However, I can't find any of those images in my data storage units. I actually had three purple dendrobiums, one of them was such a deep, rich color that it could easily be considered black.
This pale powder pink dendrobium variety was a great bloomer. It also made a lot of kekeis (pups) which I had in as many containers. Another one that I had very similar to this one was a peach dendrobium. I am sorry I am unable to remember any of their names anymore.
Look at these orchids blooming so happily in the balcony of the apartment where we used to live. It was a small space and I had got a metal stand made in five levels so I could fit in all of my plants. They were actually under the shade of a huge Sacred Bengal ficus that stood behind our apartment. It was just the perfect condition for the orchids to grow. They got a bit of the morning sun but remained under the shade for most part of the day. However there was enough bright light throughout the day. These lived happily among the lilies, bromeliads hibiscus, ferns and other plants. I never gave the orchids any special treatment. They just lived happily in the open with the other plants. I guess they had created a great micro-climate for themselves that was favorable to every kind of plant there.
I guess I might give in to these cries of the heart one of these days and buy myself some dendrobiums . Dendrobiums are not so pricey here, I could try them out in my balcony before I bring in Phals. Phals are three to four times the cost of dendrobiums , generally speaking.
I am not very impulsive buyer but who knows. Plants are my achilles heels, I always buy more than I intended to when it comes to plants, but for now I am trying my best to keep away from any plant purchases not just orchids. I have way too many for any good. I just hope and pray that good reason prevails.
Thanks for reading and supporting my work here. Have a great day!