Africanaussie

One of the most tropical flowers is the orchid, but I am a pretty lazy gardener, and somehow orchids always seem a  lot of trouble.  Living here though, I have found myself on occasion being gifted with or even buying an orchid or two.   A while back I moved my crucifix orchid out to the back fence, and with just a few rays of sunshine it began to bloom.  Oh Happy days! Maybe the orchids need more light in order to bloom, although the white one loves its spot under the shade of the lychee tree and this is the second time it has bloomed this year.  I love the white among all the tropical green leaves.   I have a few other orchids hanging from a bamboo stake in that corner.  While walking on the windswept beach after our storm I came across this bit of flotsam - I thought it might be  the trunk of a tree fern, b...

I have really wondered about orchids - do they require exra fertilizer besides bark?  Mine just do not seem to flower as  well as I would have hoped.  They are in the shade and I do realise they need a bit of sun when they are ready to flower, but quite honestly I dont have space for a summer house for them! Would it be better to have them on some sort of screen that could be moved out into the sun to promote flowering?  Mmmm, I do have an old cane arch - that has given me an idea!  I will shelve that idea in the back of my mind, but I can see pots of orchids suspended in a type of screen effect.  Not sure where I would put it..... but having somethign moveable might be the idea. Before I began gardening totally organically I used to spray my orchids with fertilizers and they would flower twice a year.  Now they get a little seaweed tea, and because they are not in soil where they would get my compost, that is pretty much all they get....