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[INDOOR-GARDENING:125] Re: orchids

Dear Claire and Friends,

Thank you for your fine note Sunday.  I inquired the last time I was to Lowe's
and Home Depot and all of their plants come from Florida.  Because overhead
there is so much less than in colder parts of the country, is why they can
sell them so inexpensively.

Our orchids from both these businesses have been outstanding, free from
disease and can be purchased either in full bud and/or bloom or in little net
bags for less money for you to grow on into large mature plants. In my
opinion, one really gets one's money's worth in these purchases.

Claire, there are many fine books on orchids.  We got two or three large
hardbacks at Barnes and Nobel and Border's book stores (encyclopedia type
books -- very informative for the serious grower.)  The orchid books from the
American Orchid Society are excellent and inexpensive.  I bought one from our
local society here in Wichita.  It's a most informative book and would help
anyone starting out.   If you can't find one, let me know and I will get one
for you and mail it to you. Brooklyn Botanical Gardens in New York City have a
fine, small, inexpensive book or orchids and most other tropical plants.  Well
worth investigating.  Also an excellent on on gesneriads.

We grow orchids in clay pots with fast drainage (a square of screen wire over
the hole (s) in the bottom and then filled with orchid bark (Hoffman's) from
Home Depot.  It's less expensive that the prices at our wholesaler!  We also
grow in the little 6," 8," 10" and 12" wooden slatted orchid baskets also for
sale at the two home stores we're talking about.  We put a bit of long fibered
sphagnum in the bottom so the bark bits won't fall through and then fill as we
would a pot.  

We fertilize quarter strength with each watering, alternating between a
chemical and an organic one.  Works beautifully!

In regard to your questions about light.  We have our best luck with fairly
good, bright light and in some cases, filtered sunlight.  As you read more on
orchids, you will discover very specific light requirements for each genera.  

They're great fun and not difficult to grow as is the misconception which has
been around for many years.  In our greenhouses, we find them a perfect match
and blend with our other tropicals.  Most of our tropicals -- gesneriads,
African violets, miniature terrarium plants and other exotic tropicals like
nice, normal, warm temperatures with high humidity just like where they would
live in the true tropics.  When you study orchids, it's great fun to see where
the individual genera and species come from.  The challenge would then come to
try to duplicate that in our homes, garden rooms and greenhouses.

Wishing you great luck with your orchids!

Warm Regards,

James (Jim) B. McKinney
McKinney's Glassehouse
P.O. Box 782282
Wichita, Kansas 67278-2282
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