The best way to avoid or eliminate pest and disease problems when growing orchids in your home is to follow good cultural practices. Correct water practices, consistent low-level fertilizing, a good growing medium, proper light requirements, and adequate humidity levels are all essential to getting your exotic friends to thrive.
Don’t worry if you were unable to check off all of those boxes—few of us ever do. Sometimes, all that we do to take care of our leafy little friends still isn’t enough. But let’s take a look at some user-friendly products that we have on hand to treat an ailing orchid. The first on the list is a grapefruit.
If you notice that something is munching holes in the leaves of your orchid, but you can’t find the culprit, then it’s probably a slug. They nestle into the loose, moist pieces of your fir bark potting mix and wait until dark before they strike. These nocturnal creatures can do quite a bit of damage. Leave an overturned grapefruit or citrus rind in your pot to deal with this problem. The slugs will crawl up into the damp cavity and you can then toss it out (slug and grapefruit rind together) in the morning. If you’re not a citrus person, then a large leaf of lettuce will do. Alternatively, the famous beer-in-a-shallow-bowl trick (about 1/2 an inch of beer) will make everyone happy.
Invasive Japanese barberry (Berberis thunbergii) outcompetes native understory and prevents forest regeneration in New York State (NYS DEC, 2015).
On March 10, 2015, the sale of 75 plant species will be prohibited or regulated in New York State because of their invasiveness and “to help control invasive species, a form of biological pollution, by reducing the introduction of new and spread of existing populations there by having a positive impact on the environment (NYS DEC, 6 NYCRR Part 575 Prohibited and Regulated Invasive Species, 2014).” This is a big step in the ongoing battle with invasive species or non-native species that cause harm—harm to human health, economic harm, or ecological harm (Executive Order 13112, 1999).
New York first proposed these regulations through the Invasive Species Council in 2010, “A Regulatory System for Non-native Species,” that defined a process to prohibit, regulate, and evaluate unlisted non-native species. As you read through the 75 listed plant species in New York’s regulations, they are all species already known to cause ecological harm and are broadly established in the region. Blacklisting a species in law is one way to prevent further spread. However, “it is difficult to get a species on a blacklist unless it has already caused damage, and by then it is usually too late because the great majority of established introductions are irrevocable (Simberloff, 2001).”
Saturday, March 7, marks the return of our popular Orchid Evenings! Tickets are still available for the first of these exciting evening events—but not for long, so buy yours today! Plan a romantic escape to the Garden for cocktails, snacks, shopping, and live entertainment in the Pine Tree Café and Shop in the Garden, while in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory The Orchid Show: Chandeliers delights with its lofty display. There are plenty more dates ahead, so check out the details and get your tickets.
Tomorrow the Garden is also pleased to host a poetry reading by Deborah Landau, an award-winning poet whose selections adorn the Poetry Walk in the Perennial Garden during this year’s Orchid Show. Landau, who directs the Creative Writing program at NYU, will read selections from her book of poetry, Orchidelirium. Click through for the full schedule of programs and events for this weekend, including tours and family programs!
Floral Design Certificate program alumnae Brittany Asch (’11), is going her own way—including around the world and into Vogue. But this spring, she’s back at the Garden to inspire aspiring designers and to teach “Finding Your Own Aesthetic,” the first in our new Cutting Edge series featuring trending floral designers.
Brittany, who founded her studio, BRRCH, in 2013, has had a lot of success as a relatively young new designer. She said she owes her confidence in pursuing floral design to her experiences at NYBG.
Lynden B. Miller is a public garden designer who rescued and restored the Conservatory Garden in Central Park and went on create many other public gardens in New York including our Perennial Garden and Ladies’ Border at NYBG.
The 2015 Winter Lecture Series concludes this month with Robert Mallet, director of the world’s largest hydrangea collection, presenting Gardens of Meaning. We asked renowned garden designer and historian Lynden B. Miller to tell us just how important the French plantsman’s work is for garden designers. Here’s what she told Plant Talk.
It is very exciting to have Robert Mallet coming to speak to us at NYBG on March 19. He is a great plantsman and designer. One of the first French horticulturists to promote the use of ornamental shrubs and perennials beginning in the 1980’s, he was also one of the founders of Courson, the great and very popular French biennial horticultural event (the French equivalent of the Chelsea Flower Show). His family’s house and garden in Normandy, Les Bois des Moutiers, is spectacular and—with an amazing collection of great plants—not to be missed on any garden trip to France.
“What is that?”
“What lives in there? Are they dangerous? Do they bite?”
And, loudest of all, “EWWWWWW!”
These are some of the many questions (and noises of disgust) hurled in retaliation to the dripping, mucky leaf pack I hold up at the front of the classroom. Water fresh from the Bronx River streams from the decomposing leaves into a bucket below, and an odor that could be described as either “earthy” or “gross” pervades the GreenSchool classroom. My charges for the next 90 minutes—a group of unsuspecting middle schoolers—want nothing to do with whatever is going on in that mess of organic matter. Little do they know that within minutes they’ll be clamoring to sort through the leaves and rocks and mysterious river sludge to find living treasures underneath…
You’ll often see the Orchid Rotunda of the Library Building listed on our maps and handouts at the Garden, but seldom does it see the spotlight on Plant Talk—until now, anyway! Pat Gonzalez happened by and decided to snap a photo of the glass enclosure for which the Rotunda is eponymously named. This column of living orchids displays some of the most dazzling varieties year after year.
Today is the day—and we are thrilled to announce the winners of the 2015 Wild Medicine Photo Contest! From four weeks of stunning submissions, we have deliberated at length to arrive at two Grand Prize Winners, one for Macro and another for Sense of Place. These sharp-eyed shutterbugs have each just won a free seat in the NYBG Adult Education Photography class of their choice! Now they can enjoy seeing the Garden through their lens with other like-minded nature photographers, guided by one of the Garden’s expert instructors.
These shots highlight what makes the landmark Enid A. Haupt Conservatory such a magical place, and lately it is even more transcendent under The Orchid Show: Chandeliers. Plan your visit today and snap some photos of your own! In the meantime, click through to check out this year’s winning photographs.
Most of us grow our plants in soil—we fuss over potting mixes for containers and we amend our planting beds with leaf mould or compost. For those of us who don’t like to get our hands dirty, there is an alternative. Members of the Orchidaceae family love to show off their roots, and many of them were destined to climb. Some 70% of all orchids, in fact, are epiphytic.
Orchids that dangle in the air—sometimes known colloquially as air plants—are classified as epiphytes. Epi means “on top,” and phyte means “plant”—essentially adding up to a plant that grows on top of another plant. The relation an epiphyte has with the host is not parasitic (where it is harming the host), nor is it symbiotic/mutualistic (where both parties benefit, but rather commensalistic (when one benefits and the other is neutral). The term commensalism is derived from the Latin for “sharing a table.”
Like anything in life, adaptation to an aerial environment has its pros and cons. Plants grow in the upper echelons of the forest canopy in order to receive better light, a habit that also protects them from herbivores that roam the forest floor.
While the appeal for new accommodations with a spectacular view is enticing, the cons of co-habitation up in the forest canopy are significant. Orchids need to find a way to attach themselves to their obliging hosts. No longer with their roots firmly planted in the soil, they not only need to find a means of support but also ways to effectively take up moisture and nutrients.
The best way to avoid or eliminate pest and disease problems when growing orchids in your home is to follow good cultural practices. Correct water practices, consistent low-level fertilizing, a good growing medium, proper light requirements, and adequate humidity levels are all essential to getting your exotic friends to thrive.
