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Encyclia cochleata

I was quite content for several years to slowly poison my two Phalaenopsis and one Cattleya orchid as they sat on the plant table, after all it was the uncontrollable conditions in the apartment, and not anything I could be doing wrong (everybody knows that plants like a lot of water and a lot of fertilizer). But I knew that I should be able to grow good tomatoes in pots on the back patio if only I could cut down on the constant ocean breeze. I also had a terrarium that sat around half finished for two years that I was going to put some frogs into.

I finished the terrarium, and decided to put in some carnivorous plants instead of any animals I would have to feed and clean up after. I did my homework on the web by checking out the sites on the International Carnivorous Plant Society Web Ring. Here I found out the importance of using distilled or rain water for CPs (carnivorous plants) because in their natural habitats the water they rely on is very low in dissolved salts, and so the plants have not retained the ability to deal with the higher levels of these ions found in normal ground water (~ tap water). Once the terrarium was up and running it seemed like a good humid place to temporarily put my orchids. They seemed to like the humidity and distilled water.

During my numerous trips to various Home Depot mega hardware stores, I found myself passing by little bitty baby orchids (that would fit nicely in the terrarium) next to the Venus fly traps (VFTs) and other CPs. Unfortunately next to the baby orchids are big orchids. Just one wouldn't hurt (I had more large cracked aquaria at home, why not make a humid enclosure for the bigger orchids so that there would be more room for the little ones in the first terrarium). The downward spiral began.

Just out of curiosity...

I double clicked on a funny looking URL (orchidlady.com) during a spontaneous web search for orchid sites. It had so much good introductory information (and Links) on orchid growing, that I started to learn some ins and outs of orchid growing (without having to shell out bucks for books). Then I found all of the nice people on various internet orchid forums (like The Orchid Source Discussion Board). Now I am calling the patio a Solarium, and the aquaria Orchidaria.


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and without written consent may only be used for nonprofit educational purposes.

tzimmerm@nhm.org -- La_Jaiba@Hotmail.com

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