As a general guide, apply feed added to the water at every second or third watering. By using plain water in between the feeds, any leftover chemicals in the compost (growing medium) will be washed through, avoiding the build-up of any residue. Feed very sparingly during the winter and more liberally in summer, when there is better light and higher temperatures to balance the extra nutrients being supplied.
Have ready a shallow bowl of slightly tepid water to which you have added a little fungicide. Unscrew the jar and pour some of the water into the jar and swill it around. This may be sufficient to dislodge the seedlings so that they can be poured out. If the agar is too firm, it may need to be broken up and the seedlings carefully removed with tweezers.
Once you have rinsed the seedlings, clean off any agar and lay them out, graded by size, on a piece of absorbent paper towel. Retain only the best-looking plants, discarding the weakest and also any gross plants that have grown significantly larger than the rest. These mutant giants may look exceptionally good, but when grown on to flowering are often found to have inferior flowers. Your chosen plants are now ready to be potted into small community pots or segregated trays.
You can plant six orchid seedlings in one community pot. The pots or trays should have been prepared a week or so beforehand. Place a little drainage material in the base, using your preferred compost (growing medium). An ideal mix is fine bark, with perlite and charcoal added in even proportions, or you can use Rockwool. The latter is less likely to contain any harmful infection that can cause damping off. The community pots can be watered the day before use, which will make the compost easy to handle.
Work the seedlings in around the pot rim by making holes with a pointed stick and lowering the plants into the holes, pressing the compost gently around their base. Take care that the seedlings are not buried too deeply, which can cause them to rot, or standing proud and loose, in which case they will not root into the compost.
Draw up a regular feeding program for the year and keep a diary. If watering and feeding are done at the same time, plan this for a certain day of the week so that it becomes part of the routine of your orchid growing. Applying feed with water is probably the best way to fertilize most orchids. Adding a slow-release fertilizer to the compost (growing medium) when potting does not always work because orchids can be left for two or three years between repotting, by which time any nourishment given at the beginning will have long since deteriorated, with nothing left to benefit the plant.
Orchids are now systematically fed using any one of number of specially prepared orchid fertilizers. These are available from coos` outlets where orchids can be purchased It is far better to buy a proven product than to make up your own brand of feed. unless you thoroughly understand the requirements of your plants. Then remains the danger of overfeeding, with the orchids suffering the consequences.
Another product known as cow-tea needs no explanation. In addition to being used on the plants, these mixtures were sometimes poured on to the hot water pipes that ran round the greenhouses, giving off a strong vapor, highly charged with ammonia. Fortunately, today we have progressed to more "scientific" methods of feeding.
Have ready a shallow bowl of slightly tepid water to which you have added a little fungicide. Unscrew the jar and pour some of the water into the jar and swill it around. This may be sufficient to dislodge the seedlings so that they can be poured out. If the agar is too firm, it may need to be broken up and the seedlings carefully removed with tweezers.
Once you have rinsed the seedlings, clean off any agar and lay them out, graded by size, on a piece of absorbent paper towel. Retain only the best-looking plants, discarding the weakest and also any gross plants that have grown significantly larger than the rest. These mutant giants may look exceptionally good, but when grown on to flowering are often found to have inferior flowers. Your chosen plants are now ready to be potted into small community pots or segregated trays.
You can plant six orchid seedlings in one community pot. The pots or trays should have been prepared a week or so beforehand. Place a little drainage material in the base, using your preferred compost (growing medium). An ideal mix is fine bark, with perlite and charcoal added in even proportions, or you can use Rockwool. The latter is less likely to contain any harmful infection that can cause damping off. The community pots can be watered the day before use, which will make the compost easy to handle.
Work the seedlings in around the pot rim by making holes with a pointed stick and lowering the plants into the holes, pressing the compost gently around their base. Take care that the seedlings are not buried too deeply, which can cause them to rot, or standing proud and loose, in which case they will not root into the compost.
Draw up a regular feeding program for the year and keep a diary. If watering and feeding are done at the same time, plan this for a certain day of the week so that it becomes part of the routine of your orchid growing. Applying feed with water is probably the best way to fertilize most orchids. Adding a slow-release fertilizer to the compost (growing medium) when potting does not always work because orchids can be left for two or three years between repotting, by which time any nourishment given at the beginning will have long since deteriorated, with nothing left to benefit the plant.
Orchids are now systematically fed using any one of number of specially prepared orchid fertilizers. These are available from coos` outlets where orchids can be purchased It is far better to buy a proven product than to make up your own brand of feed. unless you thoroughly understand the requirements of your plants. Then remains the danger of overfeeding, with the orchids suffering the consequences.
Another product known as cow-tea needs no explanation. In addition to being used on the plants, these mixtures were sometimes poured on to the hot water pipes that ran round the greenhouses, giving off a strong vapor, highly charged with ammonia. Fortunately, today we have progressed to more "scientific" methods of feeding.
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