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21. Orchids

No matter how new you may be in the greenhouse-for-profit business, you need not fear failure with orchids. They are not all costly or difficult, as you may have supposed. Orchids offer double profit—as flowering pot plants and as cut flowers.

There are terrestrial (earth-grown) types such as the cypripe-diums (lady slippers) and calanthes. These are popular collec­tor plants, easily handled by the amateur grower. The bulk of the showy orchids, such as cattleya and its many hybrid forms, vandas with sprays of frilly flowers, and the small-flowered dendrobium are epiphytes—air plants. Cattleyas and vandas make marvelous flowers for corsages, and many house plant growers raise cattleyas at their windows or under lights. The smaller-flowered dendrobium is often purchased by new grow­ers who find this easy to grow. There are orchids for the cool, intermediate, and warm house. Choose the type best suited to your growing conditions, your budget, and your market.

To illustrate how really hardy some orchids are, here is the story of one of mine. One year I received a shipment of orchids from Central America in very hot weather. The bare-root ship­ping, plus the quarantine period, had not helped. I laid them on damp sphagnum, and before long most of them showed new growth. Some waited 3 to 4 months to send out new shoots. One was held over till spring—nearly 9 months after arrival. It looked so shriveled that I tossed it into the trash can where I discard dead plant material. Some 2 weeks later I emptied the can—and found the "dead" orchid showing promising bits of green! I planted it, and it grew and produced nice small green flowers

80. Growers who enter the retail florist field find many additional op­portunities for income. For instance, when you make up corsages— like this wrist type—or bouquets and other arrangements of flowers you have grown, you charge for the flowers and also for your artistry. (Courtesy, Ted Pouliat)

Profit from Orchids

If you decide to grow orchids for profit, you need not pay fabulous prices for them, neither is it well to go overboard for alleged bargains. Purchase from a recognized orchid specialist. You can buy mature plants or seedlings of almost any size, and later you may want to try your own hybridizing. This is a task. It takes orchids 3 to 7 years to flower from seed.

If you do not want a strictly orchid house, you can still make profits from orchids. You can buy cut orchids wholesale and fashion them into corsages; they are ideal sales items for holidays as well as for proms, graduations, and other occasions. The orchids will cost you less than half the proceeds of the finished corsage.

Some firms offer correspondence courses of instruction on orchid growing and design of corsages, and there are also orchid societies in many cities. The American Orchid Society publishes a fine monthly bulletin and an annual yearbook. Address: Dr. George W. Dillon, Secretary, Botanical Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge 38, Massachusetts.

Potting and General Culture

All orchids need firm potting with plenty of drainage. Potting substances vary. Terrestrials like the cypripidiums, the nun orchid, and the calanthes, grow well in soil mixtures of peatmoss, sphagnum moss, loam, and osmunda fiber (a type of fern root), or shredded bark. There are hundreds of other terrestrials, but many of them, with grassy foliage and tiny flowers, are of in­terest only to the dedicated collector. The epiphytes are grown in osmunda fiber, shredded fir, or redwood bark. Shredded bark is easiest to use; plants can be potted in it with less difficulty, and in most cases, growth is better in bark than in osmunda.

81. Because of the nature of the business you can sometimes earn more as a retail florist than as a grower. A good example of the retailer's potential is this expensive-looking corsage. It looks like a camellia but actually it is only a gladiolus floret, the outer petals spread open, with a backing of pothos foliage. A single gladiolus spike could produce a dozen of these so-called "glamellias." (Courtesy Ted Pouliot)

When you pot in bark or osmunda fiber, soak it overnight first. Specialists vary in potting methods, but here is what I do.

The orchids I grow are not potted until they have a root system. They come in bare root from the tropical Americas. Then I place them on moist sphagnum moss while roots form, a matter of weeks, even months. As soon as roots form, I select a regular clay pot of a size to accommodate them without crowding. With a small chisel, I knock a larger drainage hole in the bottom of the pot and crock it well with pot chips. (You may prefer to use the special multiple-drainage-hole orchid pots.) Then, holding the plant in the pot, I stuff in the moistened medium and tamp it well all around the roots.

82.  Retail florists turn a neat profit from Christmas greens. You can make up wreaths, particularly dried types like this, during slack times well in advance of the holiday. (Photograph by Tom Gould)

You can pot twenty mature orchids in osmunda and you'll have done a good and rather arm-tiring day's work! After the orchid is in the pot—centered as nearly as possible—I place additional fiber or bark over the roots and press it firmly with my thumbs to weld plant and potting into one.

During the growing season, orchids can stand a thorough watering about once a week; at other times, they need it only once in about 10 days.

When plants are in active growth, I fertilize with fish emul­sion or a special orchid fertilizer such as Wilson's.

Propagate orchids through seeds, divisions, and offsets. In di­viding large ones like cattleyas, plant at least four of the back bulbs (those which have finished flowering) to a pot.

To pollinate, determine where the stigma is and coat it with pollen. Orchids, perhaps more than any other genus, are adapted to intergeneric hybridizing. Do not remove the seed pod until it splits. Time varies with different species and even among similar varieties, with some requiring 3 months to ripen, others taking as long as 9 months.

The fine seeds are germinated in sterilized glass flasks of various nutrient solutions. If you intend to take up this phase of orchid culture, consult a book devoted entirely to orchids or Dr. Post's Florist Crop Production and Marketing.

Here are a few personal observations on some of the orchids I have grown in my greenhouse.

CALANTHE

Winter-flowering Calanthe can be potted in a soil mixture of equal parts of loam, leaf mold, and sand, and grown in semi-shade in a 65-degree house. When, in the fall, the leaves turn yellow and drop, it is time to rest the pseudo bulbs. Flowers, small and borne on long stems, are white or rose, sometimes blotched with crimson or yellow.

CATTLEYA

Cattleya is the largest orchid grown by professional florists. It is the one most people think of as an orchid. The cattleyas have large showy blooms of white, rose, yellow, and purple. Grow them at 60 to 80 degrees. Propagate by separating the back bulbs and placing them in a shaded pot until growth starts.

Some of the most popular florist varieties are Cattleya alba, pure white; C. caerulea, pale violet-blue; and the white or yel­low C. Wageneri.

CYMBIDIUM

Cymbidiums keep the longest of any cut flower. No wonder they are so popular for corsages. They may be epiphytes or terrestrials—with flowers of white, green, red, or brown. Grow them in a medium of equal parts of loam, leaf mold, and shredded bark or osmunda fiber. Many species of these orchids need temperatures lower than 60 degrees F. for bud-setting.

CYPRIPEDIUMS

These, called cyps or lady slippers, are favorites for window garden or greenhouse. You can grow them in a cool or inter­mediate house (55 to 60 degrees). They come in many colors.

The pouchy flowers of some of the green and brown ones have a varnished look.

Cypripediums do well in a soil mixture of 2 parts peat moss, 1 part sphagnum moss, ½ part loam and ½ part crushed pot chips, and in a light position, near the top of the greenhouse.

Place at least ⅓ drainage material in each pot; insert some of the potting mixture—then be relatively firm about potting. Be careful, too, not to over water, at least until roots have taken hold.

83, 84, 85, 86. The common heart-leaf philodendron always sells, but if you are seeking other possibilities for profit, grow also some with exotic foliage. These seven are a mere sampling of the many different leaf forms, textures and patterns. If you carry a selection, your greenhouse should become a mecca for philodendron fanciers. The pictured varieties, from left to right across the top, then the bottom are: philodendron elegans, squamifereum, penduraeforme, sodiroi, verrucosum, gloriosum, and barryi  (Photographs by A. B. Graf)

Propagation is generally through division.

Cypripedium viridissimum has yellow-green flowers; C. Maudiae is a cool green; C. aurobe is brown and yellow, alladin is pink. Green and white C. Sanderae and C. giganteum are favorites with professional florists.

DENDROBIUM

Dendrobiums are epiphytes, producing their 3-inch flowers in pairs or triplets. The flowers have firm substance, are easy to ship, and will keep a long time in storage. The plants grow rather tall and must be staked. Give them fulllight, keep them warm and humid during the summer, cooler and drier in the winter. Dendrobiums come in white, orchid, purple, red, and orange.

Species Dendrobium nobile produces white-petaled, ame­thyst-tipped flowers; D. album, white; D. Colmanianum, large white with a yellow marking (disk) on the lip; D. aureum has yellow sepals and petals, and Arundel is yellow.

LAELIA

Laelias, originating in Mexico, are a delightful group of fall-and winter-flowering orchids, closely related to cattleyas. Give them strong light and a 60- to 65-degree temperature. This plant is often used to cross-pollinate cattleyas.

Laelia anceps, with yellow-marked, red flowers, is a favorite; L. alba is white with a yellow marking on the lip; L. purpurata has large flowers with sepals and white petals flushed with rose and a purple lip.

87. Herbs offer another out-of-the-ordinary income source. You can sell them as novel house plants or for spring garden planting. Incidentally, and this holds true for herbs, begonias, gesneriads, and all the rest, you would be wise to have printed some cards of cultural recommendations to give away with each plant purchase. This will save you much time and trouble, and will also effectively publicize your name. (Courtesy, George J. Ball, Inc.)

PHALAENOPSIS

These produce sprays of 2- to 5-inch flowers, up to one hun­dred per branch, usually in late winter to early summer. They make fine hanging-basket plants and will grow in shadier loca­tions than most other orchids in daytime temperatures of 70 to 75 degrees. Phalaenopsis gloriosa is white and pink; P. ama-bilis, white with purple dots and yellow stains.

TIPS FROM ORCHID PROFIT-MAKERS

An Illinois enthusiast grows orchids to make use of the blank and too often useless wall of his attached-to-the-home greenhouse. He fastens l1/2-inch galvanized mesh to the wall with ex­pansion bolts. He pierces pieces of oak bark and inserts gal­vanized wire hangers to suit each piece of bark. These bits of wire are bent and hooked. Their small size permits him to hang them as close to or as far from the wall as is necessary. Pots can also be hung like this with little difficulty.

The Rehs of Illinois, whose Fiberglas greenhouse is described on page 40, grow many plants, but their profit-maker is orchids at wholesale. They sell cut flowers and plants to local florists in the St. Louis area, and they do all the work themselves caring for approximately 4,000 plants. Since these plants are for resale only, they avoid having to collect the state sales tax and make a monthly report on it. In the local market their home-grown orchids bring 50 cents more per blossom than shipped-in orchids.

With cisterns of rain water available, and plenty of light, they find they can feed their orchids more heavily and more often than most growers. Water temperature approximates a warm rain by an adjustment between the hot-water tank and the direct line from the cistern. An old, water-softener tank was converted, by replacing chemicals with fine sand, into a filter to remove algae and fungus spores. This keeps pots and osmunda fiber clean and fresh longer, and the roots of the plants are not smothered by an accumulation of moss and dirt. The Rehs grow their plastic-house orchids wetter than do glasshouse gardeners. Their phalaenopsis and cymbidiums, especially, seemed to be in a much damper growing medium than I have observed elsewhere. In their Fiberglas house, air circulation is increased according to seasonal temperatures.

L. J. Milan of Tulsa, Oklahoma, built an 8- by 20-foot orchid house for only $200.00, including benches. Walls and ceilings were made from spent, 48-inch, fluorescent light tubes. It has weathered 4 years of Oklahoma hailstorms and winter tempera­tures occasionally as low as 10 degrees. He makes a good profit on flowers alone and sells no plants. In winter he heats economi­cally with two 15,000 BTU orchid-house-unit heaters, and holds the temperature at 60 degrees.

Orchid success stones are legion. You can always be sure of sales if you grow these plants.

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