Purple Orchid

I have a screened porch on the side of my house. It looks out over a fenced-in tropical garden, past some royal palms, over an oak covered lawn of mowed weeds and spotty patches of grass, and leads my eye to a pond that is framed by a Bottle Bush tree half in and out of the water. The porch is the perfect place to watch the squirrels and birds and the otters when they are in town. I also use the porch as a refuge for Christmas cactus and other succulents and as place to display orchids when they are in bloom.




Some of the orchids spend most of their time on the porch, but I've found they get diseased or weak if they never get any time outside. The balance that the porch cannot provide the orchids is natural predators to eat the various bugs that somehow do end up on the porch and do end up leaving nasty things on the orchid leaves. I don't like to kill anything (even spiders I'm phobic about) unless I'm going to eat it and i sure don't like killing with chemicals. So all the orchids get some time outside with the sun and rain and wind and bug-eating predators. They're healthier that way.



Next week i am going to put myself outside for 9 days. I'm going to plant 50 Caladiums, 3 Elephant Ears, re pot orchids, divide bromiliads, move mulch, and just generally have a healing time in the sun, rain, and wind. The predators will be there too, but its been a long time since any of them have been interested in me so I'll be just fine.



You have a good week too!