The Orchid Garden

I took some of the planting media out of my cattleya pot and found…

Question:

…dozens of little yellow spheres of varying sizes that look like fish eggs.  (I’m not making this up.)  Does anyone know what this stuff is? Water soluble plant food, maybe?  Or something more sinister? I’m sorry if it’s something obvious; I’m a beginner at this. I bought the orchid from a nursery; I believe this nursery gets all their plants from Rod McLellan. Thanks for any help! Charleen — antiques and collectibles for sale      URL: http://www.spies.com/~charleen/

Response:

But I’m guessing you think a commercial grower might use such a fertilizer. Glad I found out, glad I asked.  Thanks very much!

        Many commercial growers use time release fertilizers.  Many commercially available orchid media contain them as a standard ingredient in fact.  I think the idea is that some plants, such as Phalaenopsis, are heavier feeders than many other plants.  If you have fertilizer already incorporated into the mix, you can make up one strength fertilizer solution and water the whole greenhouse with it.  The heavier feeders get the fertilizer in the water and in the mix, the light feeders just get the fertilizer added in the water. Pretty neat idea.   Rob  Rob’s rules to live by:                            |  Send me seeds!    (1) There is always room for one more orchid.    |    (2) There is always room for two more orchids.   |    (3) There is no rule 3.                          |  Hey kid, wanna buy a     (3a) When one has insufficient credit to buy    |     Paph?          more orchids, obtain more credit.          |

Response:

Filed under: Phalaenopsis Orchid

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